Comments on: The Germ Theory of Disease Underwrites Establishment Medicine

By: Windybaer

Windybaer — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:46:01 +0000

Jumping:
I want to thank you for the rebuttal. I agree with you totally. It is too bad when conspiracy theory gets into peoples heads to cloud their reason. Of course there are alternatives in health care, and since most cost less than the “established medical practice” they will attract a large audience. Let them chose what form of health care they wish, but let’s not be deceived by their largely uneducated and reactive thinking without thoughtful consideration for our own individual needs. We, as patients, have to accept the responsibility for our own decisions.

By: Walt Gadberry

Walt Gadberry — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:18:59 +0000

Having read so many news letters and opinions by internet medical “experts” I have come to believe that the truth must necessarily lie somewhere in the middle.

I think most doctors who I have met are sincere in their desire to help people. I also believe that Big Pharma is mainly interested in massive profits, more than the general public health, and has too much influence on medical schools and doctor’s opinions, in order to suppress information on natural healing substances which they can never duplicate and patent.

By: jumping

jumping — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 07:25:32 +0000

I am sorry to see this sort of garbage actually passed off as serious thought. For those who don’t believe in the germ theory of disease, I would suggest you go back to using your drinking water source for a sewer, take long walks in mosquito infested swamps without insect repellent, volunteer to work in your local schools during the next flu epidemic, and otherwise follow the idiotic premise of Mr. Livingston to its logical conclusion. It may well be that pharmaceutical companies make a fortune as a result of the germ theory of disease, but that is our stupidity in allowing the profit motive to dominate the provision of medical care in this country. Why do the same folks who believe Mr. Livingston rail against health care reform? As for immunizations, that is the one area of the pharmaceutical industry that is the least profitable. With the exception of recently introduced vaccines, we practically have to beg companies to produce vaccines. There are constant shortages of many important vaccines. Again, I suggest Mr. Livingston and his acolytes wade barefoot through horse manure and then tell us how tetanus is not really a disease causing germ and the tetanus shot doesn’t really protect us from the disease.
Eric G. I am sorry for the loss of your daughter, but can’t understand why you think less training would have saved her life. Sounds like the people who took care of her could have used a little more training. The femoral artery is a major blood vessel and it takes about as long to bleed out from a severed femoral artery as it does from a slashed carotid artery (the big artery in your neck.) That’s a lot less than 4 hours. Doctors in much of the world, including the USA, write their notes in English, but they do tend to write in their own local language. They don’t write or speak Latin in Italy anymore, at least not for the last 1000 years or so. I remember taking Latin in high school, but never learned it well and they certainly don’t teach it in medical school.
Toby, you are right about Vitamin D, not only for cancer, but a host of other diseases. I am not sure why you think it is the pharmaceutical industry’s job to let us know about it. The research was and is being done by the “medical establishment” and if you are having trouble finding information about it, blame your local papers, your doctor, Fox News Channel, or wherever you garner your health information from.
Ray, you make a lot of good points about the lousy health care system we have in our county, but then blow it in your last sentences. There was a time when the FTC had the opportunity to curb advertising of junk food to children, but backed off when congress, agribusiness, food manufacturers, and various other interest groups as greedy as big pharma started to apply the pressure. Big pharma and the “medical establishment” were not a party to that debacle. Unbridled capitalism fosters unbridled greed. Put the blame where it really lays.
Believe it or not, most primary care doctors are taught a lot about nutrition and prevention. I spend more time discussing these issues with my patients than I do prescribing drugs by an order of magnitude. Of course, I don’t get paid for this, so if I really wanted to make a lot of money in medicine, I would go into an area that does a lot of expensive procedures, like cardiac surgery. (Then again, if I were to have a heart attack, I would want to be near a hospital where my life could be saved by one of those high priced specialists.) The bottom line is this: you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. Most Americans know what constitutes a healthy lifestyle, but are too lazy or weak to live one. It is certainly convenient to blame doctors for this, but if any of you go to doctors who don’t talk to you about these issues, you should take your business elsewhere. We live in a land of plenty where greed is a virtue. The results speak for themselves.
Eric Bischoff, you keep doing the same thing in every thread to which you post. You make a straw man and then burn it to the ground. Are you really that ignorant of what medicine does or do you just like to score points on blogs like this one? I hope you never have the misfortune of having a child with leukemia. Over 90% of those children now survive thanks to modern medical techniques. 30 years ago, over 90% died. Those figures don’t need to be played with. The reason we do so poorly compared to other developed countries with our health care is that most of our resources are provided to a fortunate few, while the rest of us go begging. That is Capitalism at its worst. It has nothing to do with the quality and everything to do with the politics of health care. You neglected a couple of facts in your screed. Just about every country that ranks ahead of us has some form of “socialized” medicine. Just about every country sends their best and brightest doctors to the USA for advanced training.

By: toby Lee

toby Lee — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 21:17:11 +0000

You should all take a look at the data on vitamin D and cancer prevention. It is all laid out on http://www.vitaminD3world.com You will not hear this from the pharma industry as there is little money to be make from vitamin D. There is now as much data showing vitamin D prevents cancer as there is showing smoking causes cancer. take a look, you will be impressed

By: Eric g

Eric g — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 05:01:06 +0000

I’am for lowering the requrements to be a doctor of medicine , of course I’am hoping to still get good sevice at a lower cost . There really is no reason we have to have special medical billers , with high wages that send out confusing bills maybe doctor could write their notes in English rather than Latin . In Italy they can write in latin . This all takes aditional training . Aditional training for no conceivable benifit , Sad to say but it used to be called Hocus pocus when the witch doctor did it . Eliminate Hocus Pocus , I’am not sure we need to build new hospitals and clinics in evrey little town evrey twenty miles apart We had better service forty yrs ago in rural america when all the doctor delivered babies and dared to try to save a life . Now they want you to come in so they can send you to a specialist or a helicopter . If you bleed to death before the plane lands , they have done all they could do , give transfusions and call the helicopter .
My duaghter bled to death in three hrs from the phema artery while two doctors gave her transfusions . but I dont think they even tried to stop the bleeding , Of course the wind was to much for the first helicopter . this same clinic saved my friend with a broken aorota which is much bigger blood vesel .but that was on a weekday .

By: Ray

Ray — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:43:56 +0000

Eric,

You nailed it. Healthcare is a big business that benefits the medical profession, hospitals, pharmacial companies and the so called research industry-everone except for the patients.

And for those people who think that they are covered by their health insurance, think again. If you were to come down with a major illness that requires an extensive hospital stay and then the subsequent follow up- then you will realized how much coverage you actually have.-when your insurance won’t cover the bills.

Medical costs is the leading cause of bankrupty in this country. That is very seldom reported by the mainstream media. However the media will give broad coverage to the latest miracle drug. Then after a few years you find that miracle drug turns out to have many side effects and sometimes is fatal.

About 40 years ago a research report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture called ” Benefits from Human Nutritional Research” stated that the leading causes of death could be modified by improvements in diet. This report was so frightening to organized medicine , processed food and pharmaceutical industriesthat the government never acted on it.

How much do Doctors know about nutrition? Nothing because they’re not taught in medicial school-only about drugs.

By: Eric Bischoff

Eric Bischoff — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 17:41:15 +0000

Pat Mencke,
I wholeheartedly disagree with you. We should be debating these ideas and the big money healthcare industry is the big elephant in the room.

Western style, allopathic, surgery, heavy testing healthcare is nothing but a huge business. It has nothing to do with making us healhtier. It has everything to do with making as much money as possible. And if the status quo were really interested in our health instead of money, they would acknowledge many other forms of treatments, some ridiculously cheap and simple and they would not spend so much time, energy and money trying to wipe out the competition. The sad part is that the Do No Harm is so hypocritical these days (cancer treatments anyone).

Your condescending comments at the end on any other thing around, which I would wager you probably know almost nothing concrete about, is where you show your true colors. You are obviously a product of the close minded AMA system which still knows nothing about basic nutrition and health.

Your kind of thinking is why our health care system is the most expensive and least successful in the world. You can gloat all you want about your profession but then how do you explain our ranking in the world. 37 is it & behind Morocco?

Finally on supporting research, I want to throw up everytime I see another raise money for cancer walk or whatever methods they are using these days. How much has been raised in the last 50 years and what has been accomplished. Are we getting better? What is the real success rate when you don’t play with the numbers? Who gets all this money and what are they doing with it?

We’d be better off telling people the truth about diet, lifestyle and environment and plain hygiene. But hey! watch out now we’d be treading on dangerous grounds, the world of big money and big lobbyists, the world of the pharma industrial complex, the agribusiness industrial complex, the processed food industrial complex, the chemical industrial complex and we know that they can crush you. Just ask Oprah.

By: Pat Mencke

Pat Mencke — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 20:06:27 +0000

The premise of this article is so mistaken that it hardly merits a response. But the author must think some of us are too stupid to understand how misleading the article is to listen up.
The STUDY OF MEDICINE is based on the scientific method of thinking by which a hypothesis is asked in the form of a question. Then researchers are able to test the hypothesis to see if it could be true. If it is found to have no relevance to data already proven to be true or if it does not yield a result that produces is positive, it is judged to be irrelevant. It is still stored in case new information comes along,
If some researcher plans and executes a research design that produces curative results, the results must be able to be duplicated by many other researches before it thought to be relevant. Only then can the side affects be studied and that process start over with a new hypothesis.
The study of medicine has brought us cures for yellow fever, polio, plague, and thousands of diseases of civilization. Doctors have also learned how to remove diseased organs, mend broken bones, control fevers, prevent many birth mortalities, help people live longer, make people more comfortable, and to prevent many diseases that would previously have been fatal. They are still working on cancer, spinal disorders, milaria, Alzheimers, HIV, and many others although some of these can be controlled to some extinct.
It is true that there is much research to be done and that we don’t currently have all the answers. But we have come a long, long way. Many more discoveries must be made and a lot of hard work is left to be done.
However, there is no other system that mankind has going for it that is as thorough, has as much accumulated data, has as many dedicated adherents and researchers, and has a “do no harm” rule built into it. It isn’t perfect, but it is the best system we have available to mankind at this point in our development.
Any other thing around, by comparison, falls into the area of the witch doctor, the snake oil salesman, old wives tales, and a few “Eastern” medicine rituals with very little apparent benefit. Most of these definitely fall into the category of exploitation for money.
Support Medical Research whenever you get the opportunity. Use “real” doctors when you need a treatment–they will have the best available information. And did I say support medical research?

By: Pat Mencke

Pat Mencke — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 19:30:35 +0000

Steven Hill | Offer Paid Sick Leave
http://www.truthout.org/061909F?n
Steven Hill, The New York Daily News: “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States has confirmed 45 deaths associated with swine flu among more than 17,500 cases reported. With the U.S. economy already reeling, workplaces also have been affected, causing President Obama to urge workers with flu symptoms to ’stay home.’ But for far too many American workers, that is easier said than done. About 160 nations provide mandatory paid sick days, with 127 providing a week or more annually. Unfortunately the U.S. is not one of them, leaving some 60 million workers – 43% of the private industry labor force – without any paid sick days.”

By: Peter Melville

Peter Melville — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 01:03:41 +0000

Doctors think they can control things but they can’t and they can’t explain why some get well against all odds.