World's Greatest Medical Failures

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World's Greatest Medical Failures

http://www.jonbarron.org/baseline-health-program/07-21-2008.php

Date:7/21/2008

Posted By: Jon Barron

Last issue, I discussed the " 10 greatest advancements in medical history. " In

this issue, I want to cover  some of medicine's greatest failings and to discuss

some of the philosophical holes in the modern medical paradigm that lead to

those failings. And of course, along the way, highlight some of those failings.

But first, let's get some perspective.

Sickness, disease, and injury abound. People need medical care. In America, we

have grown up trusting our family doctor. There is peace of mind in knowing that

someone cares, that someone knows your child by name and is moved by compassion

when you, or someone you love, is hurting. In recent years we have turned to the

more anonymous (but more complete) coverage, of prepaid medical plans. In Europe

and Canada, it's the " health system " physicians who offer you cradle to grave

protection in the name of the state. Understand, when you need a doctor, only a

doctor will do. If you are severely injured in an automobile accident, you want

a skilled surgeon -- not an herbalist.

Modern medical science has made incredible advances and contributions which have

alleviated pain and suffering. Surgical technique (the cutting apart and

repairing of the human body) has made remarkable progress. Identification of

germs that cause disease and improved sanitation, which aids in preventing that

disease, have also seen vast achievements. Burn treatment, trauma, and emergency

room care are nothing less than miraculous. When it comes to these areas of

medical care, the value they bring to us is impossible to measure.

But…there is another side to this story. There is great failure in health care

today -- and, as a result of that failure, great pain and unnecessary suffering.

And it is important that, as you discover how badly the modern medical paradigm

is failing, you take great care not to assign blame wrongly. Yes, there are

incompetent doctors whose practices we all abhor, and we wish they could never

practice medicine again, but this newsletter is not about them. Neither is it

directed at the thousands of faithful health care workers who go about their

daily jobs. Specifically, my purpose in this newsletter is to confront the very

foundational philosophy and system of the modern medical paradigm -- a

philosophy that costs trillions and a system that promises hope, but delivers

misery. No one, including many inside the medical community, can help but

acknowledge these great failings. Sadly, for all our education and massive

expenditures, modern medicine has

failed miserably. You may wonder why.

Modern medicine likes to trace its roots to Hippocrates, the patron saint of

today's doctors. In truth, its roots rest more comfortably in the Newtonian

views of the 17th century when philosophers and scientists defined the universe

as a great machine.Physicians of that era were not immune to this influence and

likewise began to define the human body as a machine. According to this " new "

paradigm, the body could be analyzed, catalogued, adjusted, and repaired as

required -- just like any other machine.

This viewpoint became firmly established during the 19th century when the " body

as machine " concept was taken to its ultimate, absurd extreme. The human body

was no longer viewed as a holistic entity, but rather as a grouping of separate

parts and pieces. Disease was no longer viewed as a body state, but as a set of

symptoms. Ultimately, and so it is today, the province of medicine has become

the observation, classification, and management of symptoms. According to this

paradigm, disease or illness or injury manifests itself as symptoms entirely

separate from the body as a whole (a decidedly non-holistic paradigm). The body

is irrelevant. If the symptom can be eliminated (e.g., cholesterol numbers

lowered through daily use of statin drugs), you are, by definition, now healthy.

In fact, there are some who would argue that today's medicine has even gone

beyond treating the body as a machine -- that today's doctors have taken things

to a whole new level of absurdity. They treat the body as a mere set of

" numbers. " When you go to your doctor now, he or she orders up a series of very

expensive tests (blood work, PSA, EEG, etc.), each of which produces a set of

numbers. Then, based on where your numbers fall relative to a chart of " normal "

numbers, your doctor prescribes a series of drugs to move your numbers up or

down so that they fall within the " norm. " In this model, even symptoms don't

matter -- only the numbers.

As it turns out, the body as machine paradigm works very well in surgical

repair. If you break an arm, the doctor works with that part of the machine and

repairs your arm. If you are wounded by a bullet, the doctor removes the bullet

and repairs all of the separate parts of your body damaged by the bullet --

again, problem solved!

Unfortunately, the paradigm's failures become most evident when we look at the

major diseases of our time -- cancer, heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer's, etc.

The failure of the medical paradigm

For now, let's just look at the big three diseases.

The failure of cancer treatments

The standard treatments for cancer are surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. Do

any of these treatments do one single thing to address the actual causes of

cancer? And the answer, of course, is no, they do not. All they do is " attempt "

to remove the manifestation of the cancer that results from these causes. To

believe they address the underlying causes of your cancer, you would have to

believe that you got cancer in the first place because your body was suffering

from a deficiency of radiation or chemotherapy. No one believes that, not even

your doctor. Is it any wonder then that these treatments have had such a poor

track record? And on top of everything else, we now know that radiation and

chemotherapy are known carcinogens. They significantly compound the problem!

The failure of diabetes treatments

Standard medical treatment offers several flawed approaches:

* Drugs like metformin seek to inhibit the absorption of high glycemic

carbohydrates in the intestinal tract and enhance insulin sensitivity in the

body, thereby reducing the need for extra insulin.

* The major problem with metformin is its effect on the gastrointestinal

system, ranging from a mild loss of appetite to nausea, vomiting, abdominal

discomfort, cramps, flatulence and diarrhea. Many patients find these symptoms

impossible to cope with and discontinue the tablets within days.

* Lactic acidosis is a rare but dangerous side effect of metformin. This is a

serious condition where the cells of the body do not get enough oxygen to

survive. It is caused by a build up of lactic acid in the blood. Most of the

cases described have been in people whose kidneys were not working well -- an

inevitable problem with diabetes.

* Drugs like glyburide work by stimulating the pancreas to release more

insulin.

* Glyburide is so effective that you need to carry glucose pills with you in

case you produce so much insulin that your blood sugar drops too low and you

fall into a diabetic coma. Although this rarely happens, it is indicative of the

larger problems with glyburide:

* It raises insulin levels so high that your body faces all of the problems of

high insulin levels discussed above.

* It doesn't repair beta cells; it just forces them to work harder -- thus

speeding up the day when they break down and become dysfunctional.

* Extra insulin in the form of pills or injections cover you when the beta

cells in your pancreas have burned out and can no longer produce sufficient

insulin by themselves or even when stimulated by drugs such as glyburide --

until, that is, your body's insulin resistance is so high that no amount of

insulin is adequate for the task at hand. At that point, your body goes into

rapid decay.

And when all is said and done, it should be noted that a huge study published

earlier this yearfound that aggressively using these drugs to lower blood sugar

levels actually resulted in an increased risk of death. The more they were used,

the greater the risk.

The failure of heart disease treatments

Heart disease is the number one killer in the developed world, In most cases, it

begins with atherosclerosis, which is the accumulation of plaque that hardens

and narrows arteries. The progression is simple. You have clogged arteries. This

eventually causes your blood pressure to rise so your doctor prescribes blood

pressure medication to eliminate the symptom of high blood pressure -- not the

problem, clogged and hardened arteries. To reduce blood pressure, doctors have

essentially four classes of medication in their arsenal.

1. Diuretics, which reduce pressure by making you pee out water from your body.

Reduce the volume of fluid in your blood, and you reduce the pressure.

Unfortunately, side effects can include dizziness, weakness, an increased risk

of strokes, and impotence. (Not to worry, there are medications to alleviate the

side effects.)

2. Calcium channel blockers, which work to relax and widen the arteries -- thus

reducing blood pressure. Then again, a major side effect of channel blockers is

a 60% increased risk of heart attack. (1, 2)

3. Beta blockers, which work by weakening the heart so it won't pump as

strongly, thereby reducing blood pressure. One of the major problems with beta

blockers, though, is the increased risk of congestive heart failure.  And more

recently, its use has been associated with an increased risk of diabetes. Now

catch this. Despite the increased risk of congestive heart failure, an article

in the New England Journal of Medicine August 20, 1998, recommended putting

" every single " heart attack survivor on beta blockers.

4. ACE inhibitors (the new drugs of choice), which like the calcium channel

blockers, also work to relax and widen the arteries. Unfortunately, ACE

inhibitors can produce severe allergic reactions, can be deadly to fetuses and

children who are breastfeeding, and can cause severe kidney damage.

But remember, these drugs only treat the symptom, not the cause -- clogged

arteries. So eventually, as your arteries continue to clog to the point where

even the medication no longer helps, you start getting the inevitable chest

pains and shortness of breath. At that point, your doctor is then forced to

chase the next set of symptoms and perform a coronary bypass or angioplastyto

relieve the symptoms.

And like the drugs before it, surgery merely addresses the symptoms, not the

problem. Think about this for a moment: If all your doctor did was bypass or

clear the arteries supplying blood to your heart, doesn't that mean that all of

the other arteries in your body are still clogged -- including the arteries that

supply blood to your brain? The answer, of course, is yes. And, in fact, your

odds of having a stroke after heart surgery are dramatically increased.

 

Not to worry. Your doctor has another drug to deal with this problem: Coumadin®

(medicinal rat poison), which inhibits clotting and thins your blood so that it

flows more easily through the narrowed arteries. But Coumadin has its own set of

problems, and, of course, you are still on all of the previous blood-pressure

drugs and symptom relieving drugs that your doctor previously prescribed.

The bottom line is that the average number of prescriptions per senior citizen

has grown from 19.6 in 1992 to 28.5 in 2000, an increase of 45 percent. The

average number of prescriptions per person 65 and older is projected to grow to

38.5 by 2010, an increase of 35 percent over 2000. From 1992 to 2010, then, the

average number of prescriptions per senior citizen will grow by 96 percent.

Stunningly, only the first 1 or 2 drugs actually deal with the symptoms

presented by the original medical problem. The other 17-36 drugs are all

required to deal with the negative side effects of the original 2, plus the

interactions of all the other drugs being taken. And the really sad fact is that

in over 95% of all cases, the original problem could have been resolved by

merely changing diet and lifestyle -- with no side effects.

Somehow, along the way, we have created a major industry centered around disease

and manipulating the symptoms of those diseases, and everyone wants a piece of

the action -- from insurance companies to doctors, administrators to state

legislatures, lobbyists to hospitals, drug companies to researchers, medical

device companies to universities, and even all the non-profits that collect

millions and millions of dollars to support this massive system of dysfunction.

Make no mistake, this is not a wellness industry, but as Paul Pilzer states in

The Wellness Revolution, it is a " Disease Industry " -- designed not to eliminate

disease, but to perpetuate the management of symptoms. And the really sad fact

is that in over 95% of all cases, the original problem could have been resolved

naturally -- with no side effects.

Do you understand the implications of that statement?

Disease can be averted, treated, and in many, many cases even reversed --

naturally, with no side effects…and at little cost!

The 10 things doctors must do to truly earn the respect they crave

Look, modern medicine and the doctors who practice it have much to be proud of.

As we discussed earlier (and last issue), there are many areas in which they

have made great progress -- and areas in genetic and stem cell therapy and

prosthetics that are likely to be transforming over the next 10-20 years.

But that said, there is much that modern medicine has to apologize for. And if

doctors ever truly want to be the all around healers they claim to be, they will

have to change some fundamental paradigms.

In the last newsletter, I listed the 10 greatest advances in medical history,

according to doctors surveyed in the British Medical Journal. Let me wrap up

this two part series by giving you my list of the 10 things doctors must do if

they truly want to earn the respect they crave. Medical doctors must:

1. Start thinking of the human body as an integrated whole, not a machine with

separate parts that can be treated independently.

2. Start treating underlying causes, rather than merely managing symptoms.

3. Actually learn the real role that diet and lifestyle play in optimizing

health. A total of 6-8 hours of study in medical school does not make one an

expert.

4. Accept the fact that the proper use of the right supplements can improve

health.

5. Accept the fact that exposure to over 100,000 untested toxins released into

the environment is going to have an impact on health -- and that it is indeed

possible to detoxify many of those toxins even after they have entered the body.

6. Stop accepting perks (essentially bribes) from the pharmaceutical companies,

which then influence subsequent treatment decisions.

7. Stop accepting simultaneous positions with drug companies and on FDA

advisory boards. Quite simply, it is unethical to pass regulatory decisions on

drugs in which you have a financial interest.

8. Evaluate alternative therapy treatments on a level playing field. Stop

insisting that alternative health treatments must undergo rigorous peer reviewed

study before they can be used, and yet allow 85% of all medical treatments to

used untested.

9. Stop being so arrogant as to think that if treatments don't come from within

the medical fraternity, they have no value.

10. And stop being so arrogant as to think that alternative health treatments

and supplements can be evaluated without the active participation of alternative

healers. Going to medical school grants no expertise in alternative health --

none! (I once had a medical doctor announce to me with great pride that he had

become an expert in alternative health the previous weekend under instructions

from the head of his hospital. Considering that it's taken me over 40 years to

develop a passing understanding of the field, with expertise in just one or two

small areas, his achieving mastery of the entire field in just two days was

truly impressive.)

When all is said and done, I have been fortunate to travel the world, to meet

and spend time with dedicated men and women within the medical community whose

work in the field of healing has distinguished them as miracle doctors. Not once

or twice, but every day, over and over, they perform miracles.

But when it comes to the major diseases of our time, they can do better. And

when you consider the alternative, we can only hope they do.