Time for a 'regime change' in attitude about medicine
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/10/08/EDGNE95Q191.DTL
Donald E. Harte
Friday, October 8, 2004
Poof! Half of our flu vaccine is gone, because the British government
suspended the license of a major manufacturer, Chiron, over a contamination
problem. Is this a public health nightmare, as the "authorities" are crying,
or an opportunity to stop and think?
The Chiron disaster comes as these authorities are now telling us that the
flu vaccine is desperately needed not just for senior citizens, but also for
infants and pregnant women. Besides the fact that the vaccine is not uniformly
effective and often gives people the flu, it contains a witch's brew of toxic
chemicals including mercury and aluminum. Is this something that a pregnant
woman, and her baby, should be exposed to? This sudden shortage would seem
more a blessing!
On another front, Vioxx, the much-advertised, much-prescribed arthritis
"wonder drug" was pulled off the market last month because it doubles the risk
of heart disease (including "sudden cardiac death") and stroke. It turns out
that a good part of this knowledge about Vioxx's danger was suspected since
1999. It also turns out that Vioxx, despite the slick TV and magazine ads, has
not been shown to be significantly more effective than the much cheaper
nonprescription anti-inflammatories such as Tylenol and Advil.
The Chiron flu vaccine and Vioxx fiascos are not isolated incidents. Two
years ago, after decades of doctors pushing hormone replacement therapy for
virtually every menopausal woman (as if menopause was a disease), alleging
side benefits of decreasing rates of heart disease, stroke and cancer, it
became known that HRT actually causes these ailments. Anyone in the field
should have realized that sex hormones (including estrogen) are, chemically,
steroids, very powerful and usually dangerous when used as drugs.
The examples don't stop there: The diabetes drug Rezulin was pulled from
the market because it was killing people by destroying their livers; a vaccine
for infants to prevent diarrhea due to rotavirus was pulled because of deaths
caused by the intestines folding up into themselves; and the anti-cholesterol
drug, Baycol, was withdrawn due to deaths from a condition known as
rhabdomyolysis, in which muscle tissue breaks down into the blood, after which
it clogs the kidneys.
In the not too distant medical past (in the 20th century), we can look back
on radium nasal suppositories for sinus infections, numerous mercury- based
drugs commonly prescribed for a variety of diseases, tonsils yanked out of
almost every child (forgetting that the tonsils are an important part of the
immune system) and frontal lobotomies, insulin shock and electroshock for
various mental disorders. All these catastrophes were once "state of the art."
Back in 1991, the British Medical Journal, one of the oldest and most
respectable scientific journals in the world, published an editorial entitled
"Where is the wisdom? The poverty of medical evidence." The author, Dr.
Richard Smith, stated that "... only about 15 percent of medical interventions
are supported by solid scientific evidence. This is partly because only 1
percent of the articles in medical journals are scientifically sound, and
partly because many treatments have never been assessed at all."
These days, whatever has previously been somewhat scientific has been
perverted for commercial gain by the pharmaceutical giants. DTC ("direct-to-
consumer") drug ads have become ubiquitous on TV, radio and in magazines.
Patients come in demanding a particular drug, and doctors usually prescribe
it. Medical education itself, both pre- and post-graduate, is sponsored, to a
great degree, by pharmaceutical companies, which get naming rights for their
donations (e.g., Purdue Pharma Pain Center at Massachusetts General Hospital).
What should you do if you have been on drugs that have been pulled? Just go
on to the next "wonder drug"? Some count on the "next wave," like gene therapy
or stem-cell therapy. I assure you that, in these cases as well, the "wonder
drug," or therapy, of today, will be the "blunder drug," or therapy, of
tomorrow.
In the realm of health care, it is time for a mental "regime change." The
modern obsession with high tech cannot, rationally, extend to health care in
the form of trust in the next medical breakthrough.
There are two alternate choices for your health. One is to consider
"alternative medicine," such as Chinese medicine and homeopathy, which are
considered safer than establishment medicine. However, like traditional
medicine, they still rely on diagnosis and treatment.
The other alternate road is totally different, philosophically as well as
practically. It leads to the ultimate high tech, the wisdom within the body,
its innate intelligence. The type of doctor who has respect for this
intelligence -- making sure that it is expressed more fully, resulting in
healing, resulting in health, resulting in wellness -- is the chiropractor.
When people read books by Harvard-trained "alternative" doctors like Deepak
Chopra and Andrew Weil, they think that it is so cool that they have
discovered that the body can heal itself. Chiropractic has been saying this
for more than 100 years.
Chiropractic has no contamination problems, no recalls, no death, no faked
or commercialized research. And we don't care about any shortage of flu
vaccine!
Donald E. Harte, a doctor of chiropractic in Corte Madera, is a governor
of the World Chiropractic Alliance (www.worldchiropracticalliance.org).
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/10/08/EDGNE95Q191.DTL
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