Health vs Remedies

We must clarify that medical doctors, hospitals and drugs do not provide health. They provide remedies, and remedies are different from health. Only you can provide yourself with a healthy life through your thoughts, actions and, in particular, your diet and lifestyle.

by Dr. Larry Wilson — 

Medical errors and other medical mishaps kill more than 250,000 Americans each year, according to an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association. In fact, more Americans die directly from their doctors’ medical interventions than from diabetes and cancer combined. However, since we all may use the medical care system at some time, this article can help you get the best care possible.

Before we begin, we must clarify that medical doctors, hospitals and drugs do not provide health. They provide remedies, and remedies are different from health. Only you can provide yourself with a healthy life through your thoughts, actions and, in particular, your diet and lifestyle.

Doctors

Doctors are at the center of the American medical system. Some are brilliant, while others may be quite arrogant and even ignorant of different methods of healing. Licensed doctors, along with the pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, some insurers and other smaller groups, together form what might realistically be called a cartel.

A cartel is a group of organizations and individuals who work together to control an industry for their own benefit. In this case, the players in the medical industry seem to support regulations to enforce their monopoly, the most important of which are licensing laws. These laws effectively shut out anyone who does not meet their licensing requirements.

The licensing system appears to be an excellent way of preventing fraud and abuse. However, this is not entirely true. Aspects of medical licensing seem to have been fraudulent from the beginning, and remain so. It is promoted as a public health measure when its real intent often appears simply to increase the incomes of one group of men at the expense of all others. We recommend an article on our Web site about this issue titled, “The Case Against Medical Licensing.”

Licensing raises prices dramatically and reduces access to care and the quality of care by excluding large numbers of practitioners who are denied the right to work inside the system. Also, many cartel doctors who deviate from “accepted practices” become suspect by their licensing boards and could lose their practice privileges.

Those who do remain find themselves needing to practice defensive medicine. Defensive medicine involves the use of extra tests, at times unnecessary drugs and even unnecessary operations, all of which are prescribed to satisfy a licensing board or to avoid the possibility of a lawsuit.

If the government were to take over American healthcare, the cartel system would remain in place, or perhaps become even more deeply entrenched. The cartel has a great deal of influence over the Food and Drug Administration, as well as the Federal Trade Commission, which approves TV and print advertising.

Here are a few tips that can keep you safer, if you must consider visiting a cartel doctor.

• Be a client, not a “patient.” The word patient implies passiveness, a quality that is not conducive to maximal health.
• Research your symptom or condition on the Internet sites listed in this article. Beware of the hundreds of seemingly informational Web sites that are really just ads for cartel members. These include the popular www.WebMD.com.
• First, visit alternative practitioners, including unlicensed ones, such as bodyworkers, naturopaths where permitted, holistic chiropractors and nutritionists. Ask for referrals from friends and reputable health food stores, and check the phone book.
• Visit the cartel doctor as your second choice. In an emergency, visit the medical doctor first, as they can be helpful with many emergency situations. However, beware that anything you say to virtually any licensed person, particularly a cartel doctor, becomes available to government snoops thanks to HIPPA rules, and could one day be used against you, even to deny you insurance. This information will remain in your cartel file for life.
• Ask plenty of questions to practitioners before beginning any therapy or accepting a treatment plan.

Drugs and vaccines

Prescription and over-the-counter drugs, along with vaccines, are probably the leading cause of disability — including death — in America. Drugs and vaccines also are the main profit center of the medical cartel. Drug company profits are among the highest of any legal industry in the world.

Most medical drugs are, in fact, patent medicines that were specifically designed to receive a patent. Patents allow for much higher price markups because other firms are prevented from copying patented products for about 17 years. Many, if not most, patent medicines are harmful to your health, or at least not very helpful. A few are excellent for specific purposes, such as penicillin, an older antibiotic that remains one of the best and costs very little.

Pharmaceuticals are widely misprescribed and overprescribed by cartel doctors, who are so brainwashed by their education that they often have little else to offer. Widespread drug advertising and usage also has spawned a legal drug culture with the false belief that there is a pill for whatever ails mankind. While this perception is absolutely false, it is excellent for enhancing drug profits. The cartel spends billions each year “educating” doctors, often with free dinners, vacations and other perks, to convince them to prescribe more industry drugs. At the same time, the cartel often does its best to disregard or squelch positive information about natural products and natural healing methods. This explains why most cartel doctors rarely recommend natural therapies.

A study in the Journal of the AMA, one of the groups that has fought for medical doctors, declared in an embarrassing admission that “overall, 51 percent of approved drugs have serious adverse effects not detected prior to their approval.”

In 1999, the New England Journal of Medicine, another journal supported mainly by drug ads, reported that a single class of drugs, the non-steroidal anti-inflammatories (Motrin, Advil, Aleve, Midol IB, Nuprin, Naprosyn, Voltaren and about 20 others) are a leading cause of death in the U.S. The article commented that “these toxic effects remain largely a ‘silent epidemic,’ with many physicians and most patients unaware of the magnitude of the problem.”

The true nature of the drug industry needs to be understood if you are to benefit from their products and not become a victim. Sadly, one may be safer to thoroughly distrust this industry. If you decide to take a patent medicine, here are some tips:

• Be sure you really need it. Some entire classes of drugs such as the statins (Lipitor, Zocor, Pravachol, Mevacor or Lescol) are best avoided altogether, in this writer’s opinion. The idea that cholesterol causes heart disease is simply untrue. Cholesterol myths have been discussed in many articles.
• Read about your drug — its side-effects and the possibility of dependency or addiction. Look further than The Physician’s Desk Reference; check alternative sources and Web sites as well.
• Do not expect a prescribing doctor to know all drug side-effects. Many doctors are not familiar with the many adverse effects of the drugs they prescribe.
• Taking more than two or three patent drugs is like playing Russian roulette with your body. Seriously question any doctor who offers multiple patent drugs to you. Limit drug use to absolute essentials.
• Also check drug pricing here and abroad. The law forbidding Americans to buy drugs from Canada or overseas is simply scandalous. Americans can buy any item they wish from anywhere in the world — except patent drugs from Canada or Mexico. The real reason is that prices are one-half or even one-tenth of what Americans are forced to pay for the same product.
• Have an exit strategy when using patent drugs. Like war, taking medicine is not a great thing. Continue to seek out alternatives, especially ways to change your diet and lifestyle so medication will not be needed. Be careful, though, because hucksters abound in the natural healing field as well. They just tend to be less costly and do less damage to your body.

Hospitals

Hospital errors and other mishaps cost more than 100,000 lives every year in America alone. If you must use a hospital, here are some tips to come out alive and kicking:

• Check the safety record of the hospital. This is not easy, but it is worth a try on the Internet. The problem is that many sites are disguised to look like consumer sites. Some hospitals should be avoided at all costs.
• Once hospitalized, stay alert and conscious, if possible. Ask plenty of questions to make sure you are getting the right tests or procedures, and that medication and prep work are adequate.
• Find someone to be your advocate during your entire stay. Empower this person, in writing if necessary, to check your chart several times daily and to ask questions of doctors and nurses, especially if you are anesthetized or unable to do this yourself.

Surgery

Surgery can be lifesaving and is the best part of the medical cartel’s offerings. However, it is still fraught with danger, especially with regard to anesthesia and the possibility of infections. Here are some tips regarding surgery:

• Always seek noninvasive alternatives first. Most surgery is unneeded and quite traumatic to the body, and especially the effects of toxic anesthesia to the brain.
• Give your own blood before surgery. Infections from blood products are rampant and may not show up for months or even years. Avoid receiving blood from blood banks if possible.
• Have acupuncture anesthesia, if possible. Done correctly, it is far safer, less toxic and less expensive. However, it can be difficult to find a competent practitioner in many cases. Minimizing receiving blood from unknown donors and avoiding toxic anesthesia would eliminate two of the worst problems with modern surgery, which otherwise can be a great help in many situations.
• Get to know your surgeon. Ask for referrals so you can converse about how things went. If any doctor is in a big hurry to see you or to operate, be suspicious. He could be a factory surgeon who thinks more about money than about his clients.
• Prepare for surgery by taking extra amounts of vitamins A, C, E and zinc, two or three days prior to surgery, at the very least. You cannot overdose on these if you follow the recommendations on the labels. These simple nutrients can greatly reduce the risk of infection and bleeding, two common problems with surgery.
• Finally, leave the hospital as soon as possible, but not prematurely. If you must stay longer, insist upon leaving as soon as plausibly possible.

Conclusion

The drug and medical system is just one alternative for healing that has its place in the overall picture of professional healthcare services. In some cases, such as broken bones and acute and trauma care, their services are indispensable and fantastic.

However, in many other instances, their methods are highly toxic, very costly and do not address the basic causes of either physical or mental illness. As a wise consumer, use the information here and from other resources, make sure you check all your options, and avoid becoming brainwashed by drug advertising or FDA pronouncements on the news.

We must deregulate the health industry so that competition between healing methods can once again reduce the cost and improve the quality of our healthcare in America. Let us not fall into the trap of thinking that market forces are the problem when, in reality, we do not have a free market. I wish you well in your quest for optimal health.

References

1. Null G, Dean C, Feldman M and Rasio D, M.D. Death by medicine, www.mercola.com; 2003 [cited July 2007] Available from: http://www.mercola.com/2003/nov/26/death_by_medicine.htm.

2. Forster AJ, M.D.; Murff HJ, M.D.; Peterson JF, M.D.; Gandhi TK, M.D.; and Bates DW, M.D., M.Sc. The incidence and severity of adverse events affecting patients after discharge from the hospital. Ann Intern Med 2003 Feb 4;138(3):161-7.

3. Young SA Is academic medicine for sale? N Engl J Med 2000;343:508.

4. Vollmann J Gifts to physicians from the pharmaceutical industry. JAMA 2000;283:2656-8.

5. Angell M, Reiman AS Prescription for profit. Washington Post 2001 Jun 20:A27.

6. Lasser KE, Alan PD, Woolhandler SJ, Himmelstein DU, Wolfe SM and Bor DH Timing of new black box warnings and withdrawals for prescription medications. JAMA 2002;287:22152220.

7. Gandhi TK, Weingart SN, Borus J, Seger AC, Peterson J, Burdick E, Seger DL, Shu K, Federico F, Leape LL and Bates DW Adverse drug events in ambulatory care. N Engl J Med 2003 Apr 17;348(16):1556-64.

8. Suh DC, Woodall BS, Shin SK and Hermes-De Santis ER Clinical and economic impact of adverse drug reactions in hospitalized patients. Ann Pharmacother 2000 Dec;34(12):1373-9.

9. Studer M, Briel M, Leimenstoll B, Glass TR and Bucher H Effect of different antilipidemic agents and diet on mortality: a systematic review. Arch Int Med 2005 Apr 11;165(7):725-30.

10. Gaist D, Jeppesen U, Andersen M, et al. Statins and the risk of polyneuropathy: a case-control study. Neurology 2002;58:1333-1337.

11. Wolfe MM, Lichtenstein DR and Singh G Gastrointestinal toxicity of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. N Engl J Med 999;340(24):1888-99.

12. Lazarou J, Pomeranz B and Corey P Incidence of adverse drug reactions in hospitalized patients. JAMA 1998;279:1200-1205.

13. Fitzgerald R, The Hundred-year Lie: How Food and Medicine are Destroying Your Health. New York: Penguin Group, 2006.

Truthful Web sites and publications: www.townsendletter.com, www.mercola.com, www.healthrevelations.com, www.drmarcuslaux.com, www.drwhitaker.com, www.naturalcures.com and www.drlwilson.com.

Dr. Lawrence Wilson has a medical degree and has been in the health field for more than 25 years. His books include Nutritional Balancing and Hair Mineral Analysis, Legal Guidelines for Unlicensed Practitioners, Healing Ourselves and Manual of Sauna Therapy and The Real Self. He also co-authored Toxic Metals in Human Health and Disease and contributed to The Dangers of Socialized Medicine. www.drlwilson.com or 928-445-7690.

Reprinted from AzNetNews, Volume 26, Number 4, August/September 2007.