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The Paradox of Modern Medicine — 4 Comments

  1. The next time someone in the 'health' business criticises you for your 'unhealthy' lifestyle, John, you should point out that the biggest killer by far is the medical profession.

    A definitive review and close reading of medical peer-review journals, and government health statistics shows that American medicine frequently causes more harm than good. The number of people having in-hospital, adverse drug reactions (ADR) to prescribed medicine is 2.2 million.1 Dr. Richard Besser, of the CDC, in 1995, said the number of unnecessary antibiotics prescribed annually for viral infections was 20 million. Dr. Besser, in 2003, now refers to tens of millions of unnecessary antibiotics.2, 2a

    The number of unnecessary medical and surgical procedures performed annually is 7.5 million.3 The number of people exposed to unnecessary hospitalization annually is 8.9 million.4  The total number of iatrogenic deaths shown in the following table is 783,936. It is evident that the American medical system is the leading cause of death and injury in the United States. The 2001 heart disease annual death rate is 699,697; the annual cancer death rate, 553,251.5

    http://www.whale.to/a/null9.html#Table_1:_Estimated_Annual_Mortality_and_Economic_Cost_of_Medical_Intervention

    Even their grossly inflated figures for 'smoking related' deaths pale into insignificance when compared to the toll from iatrogenesis. Doctors and hospitals should be avoided like the plague.

    • nisakiman,

      The Patient’s Rights Group here had a visiting speaker to their annual conference and he showed that in Ireland, 8,000 die each year due to medical mishaps and 160,000 are injured the same way. Yet the medics always claim that smoking is the biggest killer at 5,000 deaths a year. On radio and TV I have often challenged the medical fraternity to define what is a smoking illness but none of them want to go near that question. I approached the State’s body for maintaining statistics on Ireland and asked them how many a year die from smoking. They said that they only collected figures in one year, (2004), and their method of data collection on deaths is via death certificates signed by a doctor. These always cite primary and secondary causes of death for every citizen. Anyway, in 2004 in Ireland, three people, yes THREE PEOPLE out out 29,000 who died that year, were certified by doctors as having died from smoking. It makes a joke of secondhand smoke, doesn’t it.

      But when I asked the “Central Statistics Office” if I could publish their figures they became downed right aggressive and said they’d deny it if I did. They don’t let truth get in the way of a good health scare either!

  2. “Oh yes, the HSE is losing the taxpayer and the State shedloads of money everyday but ‘Big Pharma’ is coining it in Ireland”

     

    As indeed they are elsewhere in the UK, too.  I was horrified to learn from a colleague of mine, who is married to a GP, that Pharma reps apparently make appointments to meet with doctors during surgery time in order to flog their products.  And there are a lot of them, too – pills and potions are, after all, big business. 

     

    So next time you are waiting to see your doc, take a look around at your companions in the waiting room; the chances are, according to my friend, that up to a quarter of them at any one time are in fact Pharma sales reps taking up patient appointment slots.  No wonder patients can’t get to see their GPs for weeks at a time – the docs are too busy striking deals and negotiating lucrative perks from the likes of Glaxo and Pfizer to have any time left to see unprofitable people like patients …

    • Jax,

      I can well believe it!

      A GP here told me that it would be a full-time job on its own just to read up on all of the new medications every month so according to him, they actually depend on the Pharma rep to advise them what to dispense. That, of course, makes a nonsense of the whole preocess. But it is the reason why after examining you, your GP will write a prescription and the tell you, “If these don’t work within a month, come back to me and I’ll give you something else.”

      The exprssion “guinea pigs” comes to mind.

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