Medical Mayhem
The medical profession criticizes alternative medicine for using unproven
therapies, which is largely true. But modern medicine does the same, the difference being
that many of their treatments are highly toxic and frequently lead to death or severe
injury. Drugs, for example, kill more than 100,000 Americans each year and seriously
injure an additional 2.1 million. Consider the following:
- Lung cancer is the most common cancer, and non-small-cell malignancies account for
80% of the incidence. One-fifth of those cases are treatable with surgery, which may be
followed by radiation or chemotherapy. Researchers have discovered that for the past 30
years lung cancer patients who receive radiation have been receiving doses that are too
high, and many are dying as a result. A recent review of nine studies found that the
survival rate two years after surgery was 48% for those undergoing radiation treatments,
and 55% for those receiving surgery alone.
- A study by the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam examined outcomes of women
whose cancer had spread to their lymph nodes, and who also had received high-dose
chemotherapy with an infusion of blood stem cells. The extremely toxic high-dose treatment
was found to have no benefit over standard chemotherapy.
- Steroids are often used to treat diseases such as arthritis, asthma, and multiple
sclerosis, sometimes over a period of several years. Many patients receiving these
medications eventually develop osteoporosis, but, up until now, the cause has been
unknown. Tests on animals now suggest that steroid drugs destroy bone cells and prevent
new ones from being created.
- According to researchers at the Institute of Child Health in London, albumin, which
has been used for the past 30 years to treat patients suffering from burns or shock,
probably kills more people than it saves. Researchers concluded that it caused about 1,200
extra deaths each year in critically ill patients in Britain.
- Medical experts now advise that even people who would seem to be at little risk for
heart disease should be using the cholesterol-lowering drug lovastatin at the cost of up
to $1,400 per year. But researchers at Stanford University point out that similar drugs
have caused cancer in rats, and, in one study, were found to elevate women's risk of
breast cancer. They suggested that a safer way to prevent heart disease would be to eat a
low-fat diet and get exercise.
- Doctors have believed that women who already have heart disease can benefit from
hormone replacement therapy (HRT) after menopause. A new, tightly controlled study
involving 2,700 women found that this is not the case. Women with existing heart disease
actually suffer more heart attacks than those not taking the hormones, as well as more
blood clots and more gallbladder disease.
[Editor: Using unproven therapies is reasonable in some cases. The real sin is
that the medical profession continues to use therapies that have already been proven
ineffective, or less effective, than other treatments.] Based on information
in: Science News, 1-Aug-98; Journal of the American Medical Association, 9-Sept-98; New
Scientist, 1-Aug-98; New Scientist, 8-Aug-98; Health, Sept-Oct 1998 |