Bad pharma, or why not to see our doctors

[treehuggingoctopus]

The sad story of the world of medicine and its criminal corporate connections. Nothing particularly new or surpising here, but it's very nice to know that someone is raising the alarm - and is not getting silenced straightaway by an Angry Mob of Wrathful 'Scientists'.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012 ... n-goldacre

[Lhug-Pa]

Big pharma is mostly worthless. They do more harm than good, and they mostly do nothing but pollute the planet and poison and/or zombify people with their synthetic-chemicals.

Let's go back to nature:

Ayurveda, Tibetan Medicine, etc.; and only keep what little of value that modernism—or better said contemporaryism—has to offer.

(By the way, I've boycotted the "organic" brand "Back to Nature" because they're owned by a big corporation which lobbies to reduce organic standards. So I do my best to buy Organic products that are not semi-covertly owned by Coca-Cola, Clorox, Proctor & Gamble, etc.)

[Andrew108]

You should see your doctor if you feel something is wrong. Absolutely you should see your doctor if something is wrong. It is dangerous and unhelpful to suggest that you should avoid seeing a doctor when something is wrong.
If you feel sick see a doctor. I'm saying this in case someone here thinks it's okay to go alternative for primary care.

[Lhug-Pa]

Take contemporary ordinary doctors opinion into consideration, sure. Yet also learn to think for yourself and do your own research, instead of depending on the corporatist-racket which currently dominates healthcare, psychiatry, (usury) banking, education, and mainstream science to fix (or ruin) everything for you. And at the same time, don't get fooled by any "new agey" charlatans either.

[Indrajala]

Hearing about how much medical science data is reorganized or in some cases falsified, I often wonder how much of that occurs in science in general, especially since there are vast amounts of money to be made by both organization and individuals. I've read it happens an awful lot. Scientists like most academics, are under pressure to publish or perish, plus there is often the question of funding, which is not small change.

But people put a lot of faith in physicians and scientists, the results are a mixed bag.

[underthetree]

Take contemporary ordinary doctors opinion into consideration, sure. Yet also learn to think for yourself and do your own research, instead of depending on the corporate-racket which currently dominates healthcare, psychiatry, education, and mainstream science to fix everything for you. Yet at the same time, don't get fooled by any "new agey" charlatans either.

Exactly. And if you actually talk to doctors (perhaps outside the patient/doctor relationship) it's surprising how often you find an interest in alternative therapies and a willingness - sometimes an eagerness - to search beyond the conventional paradigm.

[Lhug-Pa]

Or as another forum-member said HERE....

[catmoon]

My rule of thumb is, don't take anything that hasnt been on the market a LOOOOOONG time. Look at aspirin. Most people understand it pretty well. They know it is a mild painkiller and antiinflammatory, that it's a bit hard on your stomach and kidneys and that's about it. But it has been on the market for more than a century, and we are still learning new things about it.

[Indrajala]

You can't outright dismiss all of western medicine, for it has demonstrated great efficiency over the last century.

However, I wonder that as the law of diminishing returns starts to readily become apparent in respect to pharmaceuticals, there will be less effective treatments to be found despite increased funding, resulting in the present situation where "effective treatments" must be found even if it means playing with the data that shows otherwise. If new discoveries were as readily available as they were decades ago we wouldn't have this level of corruption.

We have come to expect that there should be treatments for all our ailments, and we feel quite entitled to it. This is what we pay for after all. Modern citizens of industrialized countries are generally quite prone to feelings of self-entitlement. You're entitled to eat a horrible diet and just take pills to counter the negative effects of it.

Incidentally, the law of diminishing returns also applies to life expectancy. Initially a bit of resources allows for a substantial jump in life expectancy, but as time goes on and the system allocates more and more resources into extending lifespans, you get lesser increments. Eventually you can expect that no matter how many resources you might put into the system, general life expectancy just won't increase anymore.

So, for basic ailments there might be effective treatments available, but for increasingly complex viral infections or "diseases of affluence" (like diabetes and heart disease) there might be limits to what medical science can do.

Nevertheless most of the west believes in the myth of perpetual progress, so come hell or high water there should be some treatment if we just spend enough money on looking for it. Few want to recognize limits, so the profiteers make tidy profits from the beliefs of ordinary people and the subsequent products that they demand, faulty as they might ultimately be.

[Indrajala]

My rule of thumb is, don't take anything that hasnt been on the market a LOOOOOONG time. Look at aspirin. Most people understand it pretty well. They know it is a mild painkiller and antiinflammatory, that it's a bit hard on your stomach and kidneys and that's about it. But it has been on the market for more than a century, and we are still learning new things about it.

As a child I suffered asthma and took salbutamol (ventolin) inhalers (my asthma comes and goes nowadays, though it is mild). I recall physicians always pushing new inhalers on me. They even had posters in their offices advertising them.

One of them required that you wash out your mouth and brush your teeth after using it. I guess it might make the bacteria in your mouth go bezerk.

Even as a kid I didn't care to use anything that sounded that brutal.

[treehuggingoctopus]

I'm saying this in case someone here thinks it's okay to go alternative for primary care.

It is okay to go alternative for primary care, provided you know that the doctor you're going to see is not a quack - and that you can afford the (usually expensive) therapy, both in terms of time and money.

Over the years, I've lost pretty much all the faith in the so-called 'traditional' Western medicine (i.e., the non-alternative one) - not because it's trendy to do so, or because I've been brainwashed by some New Agers, but because of what I, and the people around me, have experienced. I could talk about it for hours and hours - about how often the doctors use the 'c[ancer]' word and calmly declare that the patient will be dead by the end of the month while he or she lives for years, how often we get prescribed stuff which, instead of getting us on the mend, makes us much worse, how often they stuff us needlessly with chemicals that make our stool turn green, how often they utterly misidentify the problem, how glaring, ridiculously often they are simply completely helpless and clueless (even if only few of them are ready to admit that), etc.

I don't think those people really know what they do. There are surely some exceptions - but given how much they know about the real research into how the stuff they prescribe works, how much of an exception can they really be?

The situation is worse, though. Alternative medicine market IS full of charlatans, so one must be really tremendously careful. And, in many parts of Europe at least, you pay through the nose for a visit to your Tibetan doctor. It's a pleasure only those very well-off could afford on a regular basis. And then there's the issue of time - most of us don't have the 'luxury' of slow recuperation, and the 'alternative' (which is to say, the truly traditional) medicine is slow; you can get a sick leave for a week, a month if the situation is critical (though things are already getting hairy for you then and you may well be losing your job very soon), but certainly not longer. Unless you want to get sacked, of course.

[Indrajala]

The situation is worse, though. Alternative medicine market IS full of charlatans, so one must be really tremendously careful. And, in Europe at least, you pay through the nose for a visit to your Tibetan doctor. It's a pleasure only those very well-off could afford on a regular basis. And then there's the issue of time - most of us don't have the 'luxury' of slow recuperation, and the 'alternative' (which is to say, the truly traditional) medicine is slow; you can get a sick leave for a week, a month if the situation is critical (though things are already getting hairy for you then and you may well be losing your job very soon), but certainly not longer. Unless you want to get sacked, of course.

I think in most countries you only get medical leave when a mainstream government licensed physician writes the note.

Your Tibetan doctor might not be recognized as legitimate enough to write such notes advising medical leave.

In any case, you have to be at a certain strata of society to get such luxuries as medical leave, anyway. As a working class joe in most places your company won't entertain such ideas because you're disposable and not worth the hassle.

[treehuggingoctopus]

I think in most countries you only get medical leave when a mainstream government licensed physician writes the note.

Your Tibetan doctor might not be recognized as legitimate enough to write such notes advising medical leave.

Of course s/he won't be. Which is why most people pay a visit to a non-alternative one, then keep the paper and burn the prescriptions and then go alternative the full monty. Repeat if necessary.

In any case, you have to be at a certain strata of society to get such luxuries as medical leave, anyway. As a working class joe in most places your company won't entertain such ideas because you're disposable and not worth the hassle.

Sigh. How often am I reminded these days that growing up in a totalitarian commie state had its surprisingly bright sides.

[Indrajala]

Sigh. How often am I reminded these days that growing up in a totalitarian commie state had its surprisingly bright sides.

I have Russian friends who reminisce about the Soviet Union (my Polish friends incidentally do not). They lived through the 80s and 90s, so they had experience with the reality of post-Soviet Russia. One commented on how in the old days everyone had a house and job. Now I guess such securities don't exist. It was especially brutal in the 90s when people were barely feeding themselves on potatoes and not much else.

[treehuggingoctopus]

my Polish friends incidentally do not

Since 1989, Polish society has been thoroughly and savagely brainwashed by US-sponsored neoliberals who have controlled and still have total control over the media in Poland. Sounds incredible? It's tragically true, though, one of its results being perhaps the most freakishly droll political scene in all Europe - as well as the enormous popularity of the idea (often expressed in exactly those words) that 'socialism is the greatest evil ever perpetrated on Earth'.

Not that I'm romanticising the Stalinist Poland. Even if only mildly totalitarian (at its very worst, before 1956 and in the 1980s) when compared to the USSR or Mongolia, it still was an oppressive regime. But then, just as most other neoliberal 'democarcies', it still is an oppressive regime. Only the catchphrases and the style have been changed.