The ultimate medical heresy

[nbtruthman]

I actually hope these analyses are mistaken.

Excerpt from a paper presented at the 2006 Society for Scientific Exploration conference,
Modern Medicine: An Illusion, by K. C. Blair (see Appendix B: Doctor Strikes, at Yahoo! Groups ):

"There have been seven medical worker strikes found in four countries
over a forty-year period. Where reported, strikes included all but emergency
personnel. Seven of the seven (100%) of the strikes resulted in declining area death rates during the strikes. Where reported, death rates returned to pre-strike levels after the strikes. In four of the seven strikes, numerical values of the percentage declines of death rates were reported; the average was –32%. It is interesting that the only place a no-strike area was found in the Israel strikes we see the same monthly deaths expected pre (87) and during (87). And when we have only a work slowdown in the Los Angeles strike we get about one-half the monthly death rate change, as the strike, -18% versus -32%."

Conclusions from “Will More Doctors Increase Or Decrease Death Rates? An Econometric Analysis of Australian
Mortality Statistics” by Richardson and Peacock, Center for Health Program Evaluation, Working Paper 137, April, 2003 , at
http://www.buseco.monash.edu.au/cent...pubs/wp137.pdf :

"Systemic evidence is surprisingly consistent. It implies an association between mortality and an increase in the doctor supply, which is not easily attributed to reverse causation or to a spurious correlation with some other attribute of the population. The cross-sectional evidence seems to be stable. The present results are largely consistent with those obtained from data 20 years ago. Ideally, further research is required using panel data. However until this is completed and the evidence presented here is contradicted, then the hypothesis that iatrogenic effects may more than off-set the direct beneficial effects of additional, and largely unregulated, medical services must be contemplated seriously.

The Australian researchers found that more doctors per 1,000 population lead to more overall deaths, as it seems iatrogenic deaths outnumber the lives saved by orthodox treatment; less doctors lead to fewer overall deaths."


From Death by Medicine by Gary Null PhD, Carolyn Dean MD ND, Martin Feldman MD, Debora Rasio MD, Dorothy Smith PhD (2003) at DEATH BY MEDICINE :

Abstract
A definitive review and close reading of medical peer-review journals, and government health statistics shows that American medicine frequently causes more harm than good. The number of people having in-hospital, adverse drug reactions (ADR) to prescribed medicine is 2.2 million. Dr. Richard Besser, of the CDC, in 1995, said the number of unnecessary antibiotics prescribed annually for viral infections was 20 million. Dr. Besser, in 2003, now refers to tens of millions of unnecessary antibiotics. The number of unnecessary medical and surgical procedures performed annually is 7.5 million. The number of people exposed to unnecessary hospitalization annually is 8.9 million. The total number of iatrogenic deaths shown in the following table is 783,936. It is evident that the American medical system is the leading cause of death and injury in the United States. The 2001 heart disease annual death rate is 699,697; the annual cancer death rate, 553,251.

[paqart]

I read about a bunch of studies like this back in the mid-eighties. The ones I read about were in Israel, Brazil, and the US. In every case, work stoppages reduced the death rate significantly. One reason given for the effect is that people weren't having surgery performed. It is inherently risky to have surgery and this can cause an immediate risk to life. However, the argument continues that in some cases it is also risky not to have the surgery even if the moment of truth (live or die) for the patient comes earlier with surgery.

Personally, I just decided that with healthy living (exercise, vegan diet, no cigarettes, drugs, sugars, alcohol, etc) and avoiding doctors, I'd be best off.

AP

[Arouet]

I think paqart nailed it: unfortunately people are going to die in surgery. If surgeries aren't happening, the death rate will obviously decline.

[nbtruthman]

Originally Posted by paqart

I read about a bunch of studies like this back in the mid-eighties. The ones I read about were in Israel, Brazil, and the US. In every case, work stoppages reduced the death rate significantly. One reason given for the effect is that people weren't having surgery performed. It is inherently risky to have surgery and this can cause an immediate risk to life. However, the argument continues that in some cases it is also risky not to have the surgery even if the moment of truth (live or die) for the patient comes earlier with surgery.

Personally, I just decided that with healthy living (exercise, vegan diet, no cigarettes, drugs, sugars, alcohol, etc) and avoiding doctors, I'd be best off.

AP

The implication of the surgery explanation is that more patients die during surgery than would die without surgery for the same conditions. That doesn't look good for the standard allopathic medical model. Unless the reduced death rate during doctor strikes is only temporary: maybe if the strike were continued long enough the trend would reverse because enough patients not operated on would tend to die of their conditions. Unfortunately the surgery effect doesn't account for the Australian mortality study.

[paqart]

Originally Posted by nbtruthman

Unfortunately the surgery effect doesn't account for the Australian mortality study.

Fair enough. I'm not defending the explanation, just putting it out there for the sake of fairness.

AP