I recently celebrated my 59th trip around the sun. So, I remember when, as a little kid in the 1950?s, there were actually 11 commandments, not ten. That?s right, and the 11th commandment was, ?Thou shall follow thy doctor?s orders.? Back then, there was no such thing as the term ?second opinion.? There was no second opinion. When the doctor told you to do something, you jumped. You didn?t argue, or ask for clarification, or justification for his orders, or discuss it, or make suggestions, or anything other than do what you were told to do the same as if you were a soldier in the Army. Doctors were God-like in that regard. You would no more not do what the doctor ordered than you would jump in front of a speeding truck.
That position of supreme, unchallenged authority slowly began to decrease over time as people started to become more educated and informed. They wanted to take a more active role in the manner in which they were being treated. Plus, that aura of the all-knowing, infallible doctor in white began to erode as people became increasingly aware of the many shortcomings that existed in the medical community. Medicare fraud, false billing, over billing, incorrect diagnoses, malpractice, etc., all tended to bring the medical doctor down off the pedestal the public had placed them on.
It finally dawned on people that MD?s are just like every other type of professional person. We?d like to think that because they are involved in the healing arts and are making life and death decisions that they are a cut above everyone else. That they are somehow superior, more capable, more concerned, less corruptible, and less likely to be motivated by money than by concern for their patient?s well-being. Basically, that they are notably special. That?s what we would like to think is so. And to a certain degree MD?s have intentionally perpetuated that myth in a couple of ways.
First is their seeming obsession with being addressed, referred to, and introduced as doctor, even when in social environments outside of, and having nothing to do with, their profession. Doctors of mathematics, astronomy, fine arts, economy, archeology, etc., can be introduced at a social function as Mr. or Ms. So-and-So and they don?t think a thing of it. But introduce a medical doctor as Mr. or Ms. So-and-So and invariably the person says ?Excuse me, that?s Dr. So-and-So. Why? Why do MD?s have this compulsive need to be singled out and held above everyone else with their title?
Second is the strange habit of talking in a language that no one else understands without an explanation. Carpenters don?t describe a hammer as a portable, hand-held pulverizing apparatus. Yet MD?s consistently use cumbersome, incomprehensive jargon when speaking to the rest of us slack witted hillbillies in order to give the impression that they are tuned in on a level that we could not possibly grasp. Why describe someone?s ailment as antecubital and retropopliteal urticaria with pruritis instead of simply saying itchy arms and legs? Why say orthostatic hypotension instead of dizzy? It is so we will feel somehow inferior to them.
It is important for you to know that affirming the idea in the public?s mind that the medical profession and medical doctors are superior to other healing professions and their practitioners, did not come about by accident, nor was it the result of a natural progression based on superior or more effective treatment.
Most people are not aware of the fact that less than 100 years ago, the medical profession was not the dominant force it is today. Not by a long shot. In fact, at the end of the 1800s and the beginning of the 1900s the medical profession was merely one more amongst a wide range of healing disciplines all vying for the public?s attention. There was, in addition to medicine, chiropractic, Natural Hygiene, naturopathy, hydrotherapy, homeopathy, and a host of lesser known modalities. What set the medical profession apart from all the rest was its practice of relying upon drugs as its primary tool.
The medical profession at that time was nothing special. It was just one of many professions trying to get a foothold and be noticed. Many people thought medical practice was foolish because all it did was prescribe some drug rather than addressing the cause of the problem. Prior to 1910 medical degrees could simply be purchased through the mail. The medical profession actually had quite a poor reputation.
Shortly after 1910, that all came to a screeching halt as a result of one of the most deplorable acts of treachery and wrongdoing in history. Two of the wealthiest men in the world at the time, John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie, had a brilliant plan for making even more unimaginable wealth than they already possessed, and the timing for doing so couldn?t have been better. The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research and The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching joined forces and captured control of American medical education. And guess by what means they were successful? MONEY!
Rockefeller and Carnegie had the foresight to see that the potential revenue from pharmaceuticals was astronomical. They set about to assure for themselves more money than one could ever imagine while simultaneously making the medical profession their own personal money-making machine and the most dominant branch of the healing arts in the United States.
After firmly establishing themselves in the pharmaceutical industry, they commissioned an employee of the Carnegie Foundation named Abraham Flexner, to travel around the United States, ostensibly to assess the soundness of all medical colleges. It was up to him exclusively to determine which were ?qualified? and which were inadequate. Qualified meant willing to strengthen courses in pharmacology and push drug therapy. Inadequate meant not willing to have their curriculum revolve around drugs.
In 1910, the now infamous Flexner Report was released. Rockefeller and Carnegie began immediately to shower hundreds of millions of dollars on those ?better? medical schools (the ones willing to push drugs and educate medical students on how to prescribe them). Those schools that did not agree to conform and toe the line were denied the funds and the prestige that came with those funds, and were thereby forced out of business. The primary test of a school?s worth, which would determine whether or not it would receive funding, was not its ability to educate effectively but rather its willingness to accept foundation influence and control which had as its primary goal the pushing of drugs whenever possible.
So these two criminally greedy, self-serving, and avaricious men managed to hijack medical education and the medical profession in the United States and forced it to do their bidding. It was drugs, drugs, drugs, and more drugs. Instead of educating students about lifestyle habits that bring on ill health so they could be avoided, medical education revolved prescribing the appropriate drug to battle specific symptoms in people after they were sick. And that is what continues right up until the present moment. The ancestors of these two shameless opportunists are still reaping the monetary reward today at the expense of the public?s well-being.
Before continuing, I want to make it perfectly clear that I am not suggesting that the entirety of the medical profession and all medical doctors should be regarded with suspicion. No more than I would suggest that because some politicians are crooked they all are. The areas in which the medical profession shines, and their value is unsurpassed are, diagnoses, trauma, emergency, and surgery. That?s what MD?s are good at and it is in those areas they should be relied upon. What they are not good at is preventing or dealing with long term, chronic illness.
The primary reason why MD?s don?t know why people become sick and why they can offer little else other than drugs is because of their long held disdain for the study of diet and nutrition. I remember a time when MD?s actually ridiculed?made fun of people who were so foolish as to suggest that diet had anything to do with cancer. Today it is estimated that up to 80% of cancers are diet related. It was only about 10 years ago that the Surgeon General declared that 68% of all disease is caused by diet. That would make diet the number one cause of ill health in the United States.
The issue is no longer whether or not diet plays a role in a person?s state of health, it is to what degree that role is. No one, not even the most ill-informed, backward thinking people of all would deny the importance of a good understanding of diet and nutrition in those who would render health advice. That being the case, would it not surprise you to learn that only 25% of medical schools in the U.S. require students to complete a single course in nutrition? That means at 75% of the medical schools in the country a person could receive a medical degree without ever having learned even one word pertinent to nutrition. And at about one-third of the medical schools nutrition is not even offered. It?s nowhere on the curriculum even if a student wanted to learn about nutrition. Tell me if you can think of anything more absurd than the fact that diet and nutrition is the number one cause of ill health in America, yet the dominant health care provider, the medical profession, does not require nutrition to be studied in 75% of its schools. Welcome to MAD Magazine.
The reliance upon drugs to treat people after they?re sick, rather than studying diet and nutrition in order to educate them about how not to become sick in the first place, explains some of the more bizarre practices and recommendations of medical doctors throughout the ages. Let?s look at a few of my favorites just for fun, shall we?
Try to even imagine the complete lack of understanding of the biological and physiological needs of the human body necessary to make bloodletting a standard treatment of the sick. We can laugh about it now, but during its time it was the zenith of medical thinking.
The lifeblood of the human body is the bloodstream?the river of life. For any and all healing of the body to occur, the bloodstream has to be healthy and capable of bringing oxygenated blood to areas of need so that healing can take place. The medical brain trust of yesteryear somehow failed to recognize that fact and saw bleeding as the answer to everything. The astonishingly ignorant idea was, as the precious blood left the body it would take the sickness along with it. For some inexplicable reason it didn?t occur to these geniuses that as blood was lost, the weaker the body would become and the less likely it would be able to heal.
Little children who were delicate or frail were bled. The elderly who were feeble or irritable were bled. People with head injuries resulting in unconsciousness were bled. Fever patients were bled. People were bled for congestion of the brain, sore eyes, sore throat, swollen tonsils, asthma, inflammation of the lungs, ailments of the heart, liver complaints, piles, venereal disease, rheumatism, you name it. Even pregnant women were bled. In fact, there was no condition, minor or major, that was not a candidate for bleeding. It was even the custom at one time to have oneself bled each spring and fall to preserve health.
There was a popular saying during this orgy of bloodletting by the people whose common sense was still intact and saw bleeding as the insult to life that it was that said, ?Butchers bleed pigs to kill them, physicians bleed patients to cure them.? Of course these people were laughed aside by the medical elite who were, after all, ?educated physicians?.
One can only imagine what it must have been like to get sick in the 1800s. First a heroic plan of attack with brutalizing drugs was undertaken. Quinine, calomel, mercury, laudanum, lobelia, even arsenic, along with a host of other powerful narcotics and heavy metals were poured down the throats of the sick. Then as the body struggled mightily to survive this onslaught and their bodies were thoroughly polluted and weakened, they were bled! It was not at all uncommon for some of these unfortunates to be bled to death. Literally. It is said that that is how George Washington died. His physician kept bleeding him over and over until he died. Of course his death was blamed on whatever it was that required him to be bled in the first place.
The three most urgent and necessary needs of life are food, water, and air. How did the medical people who were so enamored with drawing the blood from their patients? arteries view these three essentials of life? Well, let?s just say that it wasn?t with any more intelligence than was their disdain for the sanctity of the bloodstream.
As far as food was concerned, medical doctors had no particular opinions because for them the study of diet was a waste of time. So long as everything was thoroughly cooked and completely devitalized it was fine to eat. They literally had no conception whatsoever that the living body required living food.
Their lack of understanding of the important role water played in ones? well-being was mind boggling. Fever patients were denied water even as they clawed at their throats, begged and pleaded for water, and ultimately died of dehydration. Loving mothers would weep at having to deny their dying children of even a tiny sip of water to answer their pleas because their doctors ?forbid? it saying it would make them even sicker. On some occasions when all hope of recovery was lost, and it was apparent the child was going to die, a drink of water was given as a last wish and the child ?miraculously? recovered. Still the practice of withholding water was obstinately continued.
One of the more enlightened MD?s of the day, upon hearing the admonitions of his colleagues that ?water taken cold was desperate bad for sick folks?, said he was puzzled as to ?why it was that anything so good for well folks, should be so bad for sick folks??
As far as the medical profession was concerned, water was not only bad for the inside of the body, but it was also not so great for the outside. Where do you think this enlightened point of view came from: ?In our opinion, once a week is often enough to bathe the whole body for purposes of luxury and cleanliness. Beyond this we consider bathing to be injurious.? No, it wasn?t from MAD Magazine this time, it was from a Boston Medical Journal in 1850.
And now air, the most immediate need of life?six minutes without it and it?s hello to the grim reaper. Medical doctors insisted that the sick be denied the benefits of fresh air. Cold air, damp air, and night air were thought to be particularly harmful. This is AIR we?re talking about. Physicians would give strict orders to keep the rooms of their sick patients closed off as tightly as possible. No outside air would be allowed in and no inside air would be allowed out. The weather may have been stifling hot, the patient may have had a high fever, the room may have reeked with the odor from the patient, and still it was absolutely necessary to keep the room closed and deprived of even a hint of fresh air. Not a breath of fresh air was allowed to be admitted. The sick had to struggle and suffer in the confined air of their sick chamber.
This was a time when MD?s asserted that the atmosphere of the cities was more suitable for asthmatics than the air of the country, and the smokier the air and the closer to the streets the better. It was also a time when tubercular patients were required to sleep in cow stables so they could breathe the effluvia from the decomposing dung.
So if the sick fell into the hands of a qualified medical doctor, here?s what they could look forward to: being dosed with a plethora of brutalizing drugs; having their veins and arteries drained of blood; being confined to a closed room with no fresh air; being refused water to drink; and being fed some overcooked, lifeless slop.
Before leaving the subject of air and the extreme importance of a healthy set of lungs in order to insure health, I wish to share my favorite illustration of the medical profession?s sorrowful grasp of what is and what is not appropriate.
There was a time when the American Medical Association (AMA) owned millions of dollars? worth of tobacco stock. During the 1950s there was a brand new invention taking hold called television. One could be watching a program in the comfort of his or her living room and all of a sudden on the TV screen is a smiling doctor in white smock and stethoscope holding a pack of cigarettes joyfully exclaiming that, ?More doctors smoke Camels than any other brand.?
By the mid 1950s about 50% of public opinion about smoking was that it was dangerous and caused cancer, and people wanted some definitive answers from the experts. There was so much concern that congressional hearings were held to find out the facts. The results of these hearings would go a long way in determining for people whether or not they would stop smoking. If it was determined to be unsafe they would stop, or at least not start. Now mind you, this was the era of ?Thou shall follow your doctor?s orders.? If an authoritative doctor said something, it was as trusted as the gospel.
The person who testified with the definitive answer on the subject was none other than a top official at the, American Cancer Society and the Chairman of the Committee on Cancer Research at the AMA. He made it clear that his statements were based on all the most up-to-date data and research, and could be trusted to be accurate.
Now just in case you may think that what I?m about to tell you he said was paraphrased or taken out of context, I want you to know that I took his words directly from his statement before The Subcommittee on Legal and Monetary Affairs of the House Government Operations Committee on July 25, 1957. It is a part of public record.
After going on about how much misinformation and misunderstanding there was on the subject, he was going to set the record straight. His findings showed ?smoking to be a harmless pastime up to 24 cigarettes a day.? And he followed that up with the stunner of all time: ?One could modify an old slogan: A pack a day keeps lung cancer away.? Yes! He actually said those very words.
So this medical expert from the American Cancer Society and the American Medical Association wanted the world to know that not only was cigarette smoking not harmful but that it actually helped keep lung cancer at bay. Is it possible to be more mistaken about anything than that? Today, about 469,000 people die every year in the United States alone as a result of smoking. One can only guess how much lower those numbers would be if back 50 years ago the AMA?s official spokesperson had not told the American people that a pack a day would keep lung cancer away.
By the way, the AMA has divested itself of all tobacco stocks and MDs no longer appear in advertisements for cigarettes.
The kind of dreadful rejection of the elements of health in favor of drugs and other heroic measures that is the cornerstone of medical practice, although not as bad as 150 years ago, is still the mentality today. The profession of medical science is based on pushing drugs. Were it not for drugs, MD?s would be obliged to stay within their areas of expertise: diagnoses; trauma; emergency; and surgery. People who study the elements of health would then be able to show others how to prevent ill health?to show them what to do when well in order to stay that way.
The fact that MD?s are still the dominant force in the healing industry reflects the ever-increasing incidence of, and death rate from, the catastrophic diseases such as heart disease and cancer. Compared to 100 years ago, 50 years ago, or even 25 years ago, these diseases have steadily increased at an alarming rate. Heart disease now takes 670,000 lives a year in the U.S. Cancer takes over 550,000 lives and some researchers think it will overtake heart disease in deaths at its present rate of growth.
The one bright spot in all of this is due to the efforts of the public. About 25 years ago people started to take seriously the runaway death rate from the number one killer, heart disease. So they took action. First, they made a concentrated effort to eat more healthfully. More living food and less junk food began to take hold. Second, they started an exercise craze in the 1980s. And third, they stopped smoking. These three actions had the effect of actually lowering the death rate from heart disease. As appalling as it is to have 670,000 die a year from, at least it?s down from the higher number that existed before they took positive steps to reduce it.
And this brings me to the reason why I am writing this rather lengthy column this month. In January of this year I saw an article in the New York Times that made me reverberate with disgust. The headline read, ?Medical Advances Extending Lives.? What a crock that is! If that headline is true then the Sun circles the Earth, the moon is made of green cheese, the Earth is flat, the Brooklyn Bridge is for sale from some guy named Vinnie, cigarettes don?t cause cancer, politicians don?t break campaign promises and Fox News is fair and balanced.
The shameless, brazen nerve of the medical profession knows no bounds. The attempt to try and take credit for the reduction in deaths from heart disease that is the result of individuals? taking responsibility for their health is galling. The attempt is actually being made to convince us that the reduction in deaths from heart disease is due to new and improved drugs. Gosh, what a surprise. There has been one strategy of the medical profession for its entire history from the very beginning right up until this present moment. That strategy has been, and is, to sit idly by and wait patiently for people to become sick and then snap into action and start pummeling them with drugs in a futile attempt to battle the symptoms resulting from neglect and a negative lifestyle.
All this article was about was, you guessed it, drugs! Drugs to lower cholesterol, drugs to combat high blood pressure, drugs to reduce strokes, drugs to dissolve blood clots, and drugs to open clogged arteries. Everything revolving around and directed towards treating people AFTER they?re sick. Not a single word was uttered about living healthfully to avoid becoming sick in the first place by utilizing the elements of health: Clean air, pure water, wholesome food, and exercise. Unbelievable!
It?s obvious that the ghosts of Rockefeller and Carnegie are still at work seeing to it that people continue with the false impression that our greatest hope in acquiring and maintaining a high level of good health revolves around drugs, not intelligent living habits.
Considering the tone of this column, I could well understand if there were those of you who perhaps thought I was going overboard or simply exaggerating the case to make my point. I?m going to leave you with something that will erase that false notion from your mind.
You know, many professions have words or phrases that they don?t care for, in fact detest, because they reflect the very worst of what the profession can produce. Lawyers hate the word ?shyster?. Politicians can?t stand the term ?cover up?. Government contractors don?t like the term ?kickbacks?. Those on Wall Street don?t ever want to be accused of ?insider trading?. And medical doctors have a word that they absolutely cringe at hearing. They rarely ever talk about it and I?d venture to say that you have never heard your doctor use the term. The word is iatrogenesis which is pronounced i-at-tro-jen-uh-sis. Have you ever heard it? Do you have any idea what it means? Probably not, and believe me, that is by design. Be assured that the medical profession hopes you never learn what it means. If you ever want to alienate your doctor just ask him or her to discuss iatrogenesis with you.
You can go look up the word in the dictionary or search it on the internet and find more material on it than you could read. Basically iatrogenesis, or iatrogenic disease, as it is commonly referred to, means disease or death caused by medical doctors or medical treatment.
Earlier I mentioned that cancer is the number two cause of death in the U.S. taking over 550,000 lives a year, and that heart disease is the number one cause of death taking 670,000 lives a year. Well, as a result of the first comprehensive study on doctor caused deaths (iatrogenesis), heart disease is now number two and cancer is number three. The leading cause of death in the U.S. is now iatrogenesis, killing over 780,000 people a year. Stunned? Me too. I knew it was bad but I didn?t know it was that bad.
In a paper entitled ?Death by Medicine? by Debora Rasio, M.D., and Dorothy Smith, N.D., it stated that, ?American medicine frequently causes more harm than good?, and, ?It is evident that the American medical system is the leading cause of death and injury in the United States.? How do you like them apples?
Perhaps you can see why I got so bent out of shape upon reading a headline that declared medical advances to be responsible for extending lives. Drugs don?t extend lives, intelligent living does. Maybe the next time you hear or see some propaganda about medical science being the be all and end all, you will think of what you have read here and be just a bit more capable of discerning whether or not you are being played.
If we will utilize the medical profession in the areas for which it excels, namely diagnoses, trauma, emergency, and surgery, and leave the rest to the people who study and teach the principles of health, we?ll be fine. If we fall into the trap of living a negative lifestyle only to turn to drugs in a futile attempt to ?fix? the mistakes without making any changes in our lifestyle, we are asking for trouble. Your health is very much in you control. Treat your body properly and well and it will reward you abundantly with your God-given birthright: vibrant health.
In the wake of recent revelations about the death of Robert Atkins many people have asked me to comment on him and his approach to eating. That will therefore be the subject of next months? column. Until then, be well and God bless.
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