The 26 beliefs that drive modern medicine and the FDA.

[infinitethoughts]

Borrowed from this post.

"The 26 beliefs that drive modern medicine and the FDA.
All herbs are dangerous and might kill you.

Vitamins and dietary supplements are not only useless; they're so dangerous that they should be regulated or banned.

The only thing more dangerous than dietary supplements is allowing the public to have access to accurate information about dietary supplements. To maintain control, the public must be kept ignorant of the medicinal uses of all substances other than patented chemicals.

Most diseases are caused by pharmaceutical deficiencies and can only be treated with pharmaceutical supplementation.

Botanicals interfere with pharmaceuticals, not the other way around. There is no such thing as a pharmaceutical that interferes with an herb.

Scientific progress is measured by the degree to which man dominates nature.

Free speech should only be protected for drug companies, not nutritional supplement companies.

The 300+ synthetic chemicals now found in the blood of nearly everyone are completely harmless and have no negative health effects.

The FDA is incapable of making mistakes, and therefore, drug companies should be granted full immunity against consumer lawsuits surrounding the injuries and deaths caused by FDA-approved pharmaceuticals. It is impossible for an FDA-approved drug to cause the death of anyone, because the FDA is infallible.

There is no need to safety test chemicals used in cosmetics and personal care products because the skin doesn't absorb chemicals. Unless, of course, we're talking about transdermal drug delivery products like the anti-smoking patch, in which case the skin readily absorbs chemicals.

Nature cannot be trusted. All herbs must be "standardized" to be safe. And even then, they're still useless.

Phytochemicals only act in isolation. Scientists can understand the physiological action of plant chemicals by isolating them, synthesizing them, and testing them one by one. There is no such thing as "synergistic action" with phytochemicals.

The only use for plant chemicals is to serve as ideas from which drug companies can synthesize patented drugs. Phytochemicals (phytonutrients) have no inherent value and their use for preventing, treating or curing any disease should be outlawed and stripped from modern civilization's knowledge base.

Shamans, medicine women, herbalists, midwives and healers are all engaged in quackery based on superstition or voodoo.

There is no such thing as bioenergy, intuition, mind-body medicine, quantum physics or therapeutic touch. The entire universe operates only on the physical and chemical levels. There is nothing beyond those two levels yet to be discovered or explored.

We already know everything there is to know. No new discoveries are necessary, nor are any paradigm shifts in scientific medicine. It is important that we all reject any new ideas or beliefs that threaten our existing ideas or beliefs.

Drug corporations should be protected because they have the best interests of the general public in mind. The future health of the entire world depends on the research being conducted right now by drug companies.

Americans are lucky to pay the highest prices in the world for medication. Everyone else has to settle for "bargain" pricing, but Americans get the honor of knowing their dollars help fund the shareholder profits of the world's wealthiest corporations, all of which deserve unlimited financial riches because they are saving the world from disease.

Drugs from Canada are so dangerous that they cannot be allowed to be touched or swallowed by superior Americans. Canadian drugs might be suitable for exporting to third world nations, but not to America.

The best way to help consumers is to control them by limiting their options and minimizing their access to information that might confuse them.

Nutrition has no role in human health. Any talk about healing with nutrition is quackery.

The human body is incapable of healing itself. Health can only be enhanced through chemical or surgical intervention. Patients have no role in determine their own health outcome.

"Science" is whatever we say it is.

Anything that disagrees with our definition of science is "unscientific."

The "Scientific Method" is the process by which we decide what is science.

Conflicts of interest don't count if we all mean well.

What's really interesting about these beliefs is that they stand in direct conflict to reality. In reality, for example:

• The human body is naturally biocompatible with foods and medicines from nature.

• Pharmaceuticals interfere with normal human physiology and inevitably cause harm.

• Medicinal plants operate through synergistic action that cannot be understood by isolating and studying their chemical constituents.

• Nature has infinite wisdom; man remains utterly ignorant of the wisdom available in the universe.

• The universe is energetic, not merely chemical or physical, and all things are energetically connected.

• The mind controls the body; beliefs become reality in the tissue.

... and so on. We could add substantially to this list, but you get the idea. Isn't is fortunate that the universe doesn't operate from the FDA's distorted viewpoint?

In time, by the way, our system of modern medicine will cease to exist. No system of medicine based on beliefs that contradict reality has any future."

[Chet]

Having spent the last few years traveling in 'less developed' countries I can tell you for sure that the American attitude about 'drugs' is not shared. Most places you can purchase any medicine you need (short of narcotics) in any pharmacy without a prescription - just need to know what you need, and if you don't know exactly the pharmacist can probably help. Also I am now taking one of those 'nasty' supplements, on advice of doctor here, which it appears I won't be able to get if I return to the US.

[Max0r]

If you want more of that stuff go to newstarget.com it will rock your world!

[Namaste]

Originally Posted by infinitethoughts

What's really interesting about these beliefs is that they stand in direct conflict to reality.

What's even more interesting (or not), is that most of them have nothing to do with modern medicine

[Matthew Shea]

I have a really hard time accepting most of this. While it's true that modern medicine has its shortcomings, this assumes that the medical establishment in this country are nothing but a bunch of power hungry know-it-alls determined to foist their limited beliefs on the public. There's also a hint of a conspiracy theory in this, too. With an establishment the size of the medical industry in this country, I find that VERY hard to swallow.

[medaille]

I have a really hard time accepting most of this. While it's true that modern medicine has its shortcomings, this assumes that the medical establishment in this country are nothing but a bunch of power hungry know-it-alls determined to foist their limited beliefs on the public. There's also a hint of a conspiracy theory in this, too. With an establishment the size of the medical industry in this country, I find that VERY hard to swallow.

It's not really that much of a conspiracy theory. Like all corporations, its about making money. Pharmaceutical companies make money by selling drugs and more specifically drugs that they own the patent on. So in the effort to maximise the sales of your patented drugs, you inevitably find some techniques and ideas that help that goal. Herbs can't be patented (at least not yet), so you can't charge a lot or be the sole provider, so you find a way to discredit them and have people use your drugs instead. You do this by being one of the largest lobbying groups and flooding the government with money to get your way. Similar to how streetcars across the nation where ripped out and replaced by busses made by GM, fueled by big oil, and etc.

Ignorance of the consumer is essential. Ever since Edward Bernaise shifted the advertising landscape and industrialization created far more goods than needed the necessity of marketing has been to sell people stuff that they don't need. If the drug companies were really caring about the people they would put out the studies that they've done about the safety and side effects of their products out front and center. Instead, they show advertisements that fill people's emotional needs (think happy people playing in a meadow or with their grandchildren) and rush the side-effects by in a fast hard to understand voice or in a soothing voice that lulls you away from paying attention.

I don't get why you think this is so hard to understand. This is the standard business model of pretty much every multinational corporation. Use the government and media to limit competition and try to get people to buy your product at the highest possible price.

[Max0r]

Further information about publicly traded corporations can be found in the documentary "The Corporation"

[Namaste]

Originally Posted by medaille

Ignorance of the consumer is essential. Ever since Edward Bernaise shifted the advertising landscape and industrialization created far more goods than needed the necessity of marketing has been to sell people stuff that they don't need. If the drug companies were really caring about the people they would put out the studies that they've done about the safety and side effects of their products out front and center. Instead, they show advertisements that fill people's emotional needs (think happy people playing in a meadow or with their grandchildren) and rush the side-effects by in a fast hard to understand voice or in a soothing voice that lulls you away from paying attention.

1. All of the above can be said about businesses that pose themselves as alternatives to "modern medicine".
2. Drug companies =/= modern medicine.
3. The studies of drug effects are out there, in the medical journals. It's public knowledge.
4.Why would anyone rely on advertisements rather than doctor's advice to get their drugs, I wonder?
5. Regarding the initial post, some of the listed statements are so laughable they prevent any of it to be taken seriously.

[medaille]

Originally Posted by Namaste

1. All of the above can be said about businesses that pose themselves as alternatives to "modern medicine".
2. Drug companies =/= modern medicine.
3. The studies of drug effects are out there, in the medical journals. It's public knowledge.
4.Why would anyone rely on advertisements rather than doctor's advice to get their drugs, I wonder?
5. Regarding the initial post, some of the listed statements are so laughable they prevent any of it to be taken seriously.

1. Yes, it can be true for all businesses and is more a flaw of capitalism (because of the motive to profit at anothers expense) than anything else. However, drug companies having one of the most powerful lobbying groups and having significantly more dollars to go to work for them can "push" their product on people much more effectively than any alternative could.

2. Well what do you define as modern medicine? By anyone's standards drug companies are a huge portion of the medical industry and are very powerful. They are also at least partially responsible for the deaths and/or sickness of many, many people. Modern Medicine is shaped around the concept of selling someone something to make them better. Very, very rarely is a product that exists in a natural raw form prescribed.

3. Do you honestly think its reasonable that everybody who goes to a doctor should have to wade through a pile of studies that goes up to their neck just to make sure their doctor knows what they're talking about?

4. That's a good question. An equally good question is, "Since people can't prescribe their own drugs, why do drug companies advertise directly to the patient adding billions (trillions?) of dollars every year to the costs of medicine?"

5. I feel the same about your comments but I try to remember that we all have our own opinions formed by past circumstances.

[pylonian]

Originally Posted by Namaste

5. Regarding the initial post, some of the listed statements are so laughable they prevent any of it to be taken seriously.

I would appreciate knowing which statements you find to be laughable and why. Also, it seems like a better idea to read through statements and pick those that seem acceptable and consider them while rejecting those that seem unlikely given one's knowledge and experience. I've read a lot of ridiculous things in my time, but I've always taken something important from each of them.

Just try to keep the tone of the conversation on a respectful and adult level, please.

[Matthew Shea]

Originally Posted by pylonian

I would appreciate knowing which statements you find to be laughable and why.

How about this one:

Nutrition has no role in human health. Any talk about healing with nutrition is quackery.

I shouldn't even need to explain this, but anyone who doesn't think nutrition is import is certainly not living on this planet. The information is widely available and essentially unchallenged: nutrition is of primary importance to good health.

I'll also add that a certain amount of obviously false information in an article should justifiably throw the entire article into question. Some of the information may be accurate, but how are you supposed to trust it once you figure out that part of it is bee ess?

[{aspiring_to_clarity}]

Matthew, you are right that nutrition plays a major role in health. I believe that infinitethoughts totally agrees. The problem is that modernd medicine does not seem to truly share that belief (the list is of beliefs held by modern medicine and the FDA - all of which I believe infinitethoughts thinks are eroneous - to which I would agree). Sure there is lip service given and food pyramids printed, but I have never gone to a doctor for any ailment and been given advice to change my nutrition or lifestyle in order to help myself. I've been prescribed drugs to treat the symptoms.

It's sad that our entire health system is set up the way it is. We could do so much to prevent the diseases that are prevalent in the US if we would change the way we live, but they tell us to just take a pill and we do it.

[Namaste]

Originally Posted by medaille

2. Well what do you define as modern medicine? By anyone's standards drug companies are a huge portion of the medical industry and are very powerful. They are also at least partially responsible for the deaths and/or sickness of many, many people. Modern Medicine is shaped around the concept of selling someone something to make them better. Very, very rarely is a product that exists in a natural raw form prescribed.

What do you (and the original poster) define as modern medicine? And what are the alternatives, especially to "selling/prescribing someone something to make them better"? If, for example, someone has an ulcer or, slightly more serious, hepatitis, what would be an alternative treatment?

Originally Posted by medaille

3. Do you honestly think its reasonable that everybody who goes to a doctor should have to wade through a pile of studies that goes up to their neck just to make sure their doctor knows what they're talking about?

Once again, I don't understand why "doctors/modern medicine" and "drug companies" are being used interchangeably.

Drug companies are certainly in the profession to make money and they will use any form of persuasive technique to get the consumer to buy their product. I am saying that consumers have to educate themselves, or at least be aware of the influencing techniques that are used, so as not to be persuaded solely by sunny meadows and happy families in advertisements in making their choice. The information about the ingredients of the pills they are trying to sell you is public knowledge.

Doctors, on the other hand, are required to know what they are talking about, and to keep their patients' best interests in mind. They do not have an interest to sell you this particular drug or that, as they do not get commission from it. At least this is the case in Australia, maybe in the US it's a different story. And they will readily tell you that there is no real difference between a pill that costs $50 and $15, escept for the branding. That has been my experience, please correct me if I'm wrong. And if someone is still not completely convinced, than yes, they should be doing their own research.

Originally Posted by medaille

4. That's a good question. An equally good question is, "Since people can't prescribe their own drugs, why do drug companies advertise directly to the patient adding billions (trillions?) of dollars every year to the costs of medicine?".

I have no idea. I think you might be talking about American drug companies. And American medicine. If so, then the original poster should have stated that. The term "modern medicine" is slightly more all-encompassing than "American drug companies", don't you think?

Much of drug advertisement here (in Australia) goes on in medical journals and to doctors directly, and not to the consumer, if you don't count cold'n'flu drops, hayfever and other inexpensive treatments for non-serious illnesses.

[{aspiring_to_clarity}]

Originally Posted by Namaste

Doctors, on the other hand, are required to know what they are talking about, and to keep their patients' best interests in mind.

Who requires this and how is it enforced? I've had doctors see me for 2 minutes and write me a prescription. I don't think that's in my best interest at all.

From what I have heard, doctors (in the US) get only about 2 hours nutritional training in their entire course of study. It seems that little to none of their training involves non-invasive or non-drug ways to heal or to prevent illness.

I don't belive that all doctors are uncaring pushers. Most are probably in it due to a genuine desire to help people. However, their training does not provide them with the best tools to do this in my opinion. And I am talking about this from a US perspective, so it may not apply in a broader sense.

[Namaste]

Originally Posted by pylonian

I would appreciate knowing which statements you find to be laughable and why.

Matthew already mentioned the nutrition statement. It is widely recognised that the majority of causes of illness and death in today's society are preventable or at least controllable by improving nutrition, managing stress, quitting smoking etc.

Or how about this one - "All herbs are dangerous and might kill you."
Where and when "modern medicine" stated its belief in such a thing? A number of pills manufactured by drug companies contain herbs and plant deriviatives.

etc.

Originally Posted by pylonian

Also, it seems like a better idea to read through statements and pick those that seem acceptable and consider them while rejecting those that seem unlikely given one's knowledge and experience. I've read a lot of ridiculous things in my time, but I've always taken something important from each of them.

Just try to keep the tone of the conversation on a respectful and adult level, please.

Thanks for that advice, pylonian. If you could just try to be slightly less condescending, that would be lovely as well.

[Namaste]

[quote={aspiring_to_clarity};96381]From what I have heard, doctors (in the US) get only about 2 hours nutritional training in their entire course of study. It seems that little to none of their training involves non-invasive or non-drug ways to heal or to prevent illness.

I do not know either how much such training medical students get. However, as far as I know, and please correct me if I'm wrong, the guidelines of proper nutrition are quite straightforward. I like Michael Pollan's way of phrasing it - "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants".

As for other "alternative" treatments, I have met a number of doctors here that get their certificates in acupuncture, holistic medicine, naturopathy etc. I googled "general practitioners sydney holistic" and came with a number of links -
Dr Mel Sydney Smith CV
Medical Practice Sydney | Doctor Sydney | Medical Practitioner Sydney
Holistic General Medical Practice, Sydney, Holistic GP's, NSW, Australia

As for prevention, there are a number of public health campaigns that are aimed at reducing smoking, improving nutrition, encouraging people to go through regular cancer check-ups... So things are being done. As for doctors, I'm afraid most people get to them too late to prevent whatever is causing the complaint. Although, as I've just learnt from one of my links, there are GPs specialising just in that. I googled "sydney preventive medicine" (staying local again) and more links came up.

Originally Posted by {aspiring_to_clarity}

Who requires this and how is it enforced? I've had doctors see me for 2 minutes and write me a prescription. I don't think that's in my best interest at all.

...

I don't belive that all doctors are uncaring pushers. Most are probably in it due to a genuine desire to help people. However, their training does not provide them with the best tools to do this in my opinion. And I am talking about this from a US perspective, so it may not apply in a broader sense.

Yeah, it's hard to compare notes across continents Although I have heard similar complaints from people who go to doctors here. And I do agree that you get varying levels of medical service from one doctor to another. I just do not think that it's due to some deep underlying conspiracy between doctors and drug companies. Different people do their jobs differently. Some well, some not well at all, for all sorts of reasons.

[{aspiring_to_clarity}]

I simply think that doctors should receive more training related to natural health, 'alternative medicine', nutrition, etc. I don't know that I would call what's going on a conspiracy so much as I would say it's a matter of the institution of medicine in general being 'set in their ways' and reliant on a narrow set of guidelines for what really works.

[Max0r]

One thing you'll notice about the modern suppression of "alternative" healing and such, is not in outright suppression, but in not acknowledging that anything besides the establishment's body of knowledge exists in the first place.

Btw, this is a great way to deal with annoying people Don't tell them I said that.

[Dan.Linehan]

Originally Posted by Matthew Shea

I have a really hard time accepting most of this. While it's true that modern medicine has its shortcomings, this assumes that the medical establishment in this country are nothing but a bunch of power hungry know-it-alls determined to foist their limited beliefs on the public. There's also a hint of a conspiracy theory in this, too. With an establishment the size of the medical industry in this country, I find that VERY hard to swallow.

I used to work in the insurance industry, I believe it.

Why optimize a system when its flaws create jobs?

Number of U.S. medical schools: 125 
Number requiring a course in nutrition: 30 

Nutrition training received by average U.S. physician during four years in medical school: 2.5 hours 
Most common cause of death in the U.S.: heart attack 
How frequently a heart attack kills in the U.S.: every 45 seconds
 
Average U.S. man's risk of death from heart attack: 50 percent 
Risk of average U.S. man who eats no meat: 15 percent 
Risk of average U.S. man who eats no meat, dairy or eggs: 4 percent
 
Amount you reduce risk of heart attack if you reduce consumption of meat, dairy and eggs by 10 percent: 9 percent 
Amount you reduce risk of heart attack if you reduce consumption by 50 percent: 45 percent 
Amount you reduce risk if you eliminate meat, dairy and eggs from your diet: 90 percent 

Average cholesterol level of people eating meat-centered-diet: 210 mg/dl 
Chance of dying from heart disease if you are male and your blood cholesterol level is 210 mg/dl: greater than 50 percent

//Cue the denial

[infinitethoughts]

1. Looks like there was a misunderstanding with Mathew and Namaste. They thought I was saying "Nutrition has no role in human health."
This is the overall American medical systems view, thru heavily being influenced by Big Pharma.

They view the human body as a mechanism.
Cut out the offending appendage, and give it more drugs and it'll be fine. This is the overall view, but of course there are always Doctors who subscribe to a more holistic view of the human. (Few and far between here.)

2.Namaste. You're in Australia. Your mind would boggle at how things are going on here in the U.S. legislative front and Big Pharma.

3