My balance and coordination is worsening. A former PATH president and continuing board contributor, Dr. David Newman has kindly agreed to take over the helm. David is a real authority concerning functional medicine and has an appetite to continually learn more. His heart is aligned with PATH’s goals. He cannot do it by himself and needs your help to get the word out to effectively compete with the spin of the medical monopoly’s corporate greed.
My latest neurologist seemed promising. Only his business cards and those of a half dozen different types of physical therapists adorned the counter near his accommodating receptionist. After a brief physical exam, he was stumped, but (at the urging of my son) ordered an MRI of my lower back.
At our next visit, the neurologist read the radiologist’s report (without actually looking at the pictures) and concluded that, “You will just have to go home and live with it.” Before he could recommend Medicare-funded physical therapy, outrage from my son and me bilaterally burst out and the doctor became defensive, ready to write any prescription to quickly get us out of the office.
The doctor had not even read the medical schistosoma articles Jeremy had researched from the web. We had looked at the MRI images, and it was almost unreadable.
The next day, the radiologist surprisingly returned our call from three days earlier and after many pointed questions, informed us that the prescribed MRI was too crude to show schistosoma-induced granulomas in my spinal canal. We persevered, and got prescriptions for new MRIs that had greater diagnostic capability.
One technician was very caring and got excellent pictures of my lumbar spine. The other technician was distracted and produced pictures of much lower quality of my cervical spine. Again, the radiologist who reads 15,000 of these MRIs per year has never seen spinal granulomas and did not diagnose them in me.
By now, with the internet’s help, my son can read MRIs. We see granulomas just like the pictures in multiple medical articles that describe patients with a similar history and symptoms.
We have finally found a neurosurgeon who also looked at the films and sees what we see. He is willing to operate (only he does not work with Medicare). Next begins the time-consuming dance with the University of Miami doctors at Jackson.
Dr. Michael Wang, a driven neurosurgeon at the U. of Miami also agrees that surgery might help with my symptoms. As a surgeon who ‘does not believe in surgery,’ I am eagerly looking forward to my cervical microsurgery slated for April 22, 2010. Pre-surgical clearance hurdles have underscored inefficiencies and inertia of a corrupted system that compromises competent care. If my neck surgery has some success, something more involved is planned for my lower back.
Maybe I can get fixed before the correct diagnosis is found on autopsy (which is rarely done anymore, since the currently-monopolized system seems to not want to really know).
Although many think the non-forensic autopsy is performed to determine the cause of death, the uses of the autopsy are many: To confirm and clarify clinical diagnoses; To evaluate the accuracy of diagnostic procedures, such as computerized tomography (CT), nuclear magnetic resonance (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) scans; To evaluate the efficacy and potential adverse effects of new drugs, new surgical techniques, prosthetic devices and genetic engineering; To aid in the discovery of new or previously unrecognized diseases (e.g., Legionnaire's disease, toxic shock syndrome and AIDS); To detect new patterns in old diseases (e.g., tuberculosis and syphilis); To provide information for medical and epidemiologic research; To teach medical students and residents.
Gary Null, PhD, helped author a fully referenced report called ‘Death by Medicine’ that shows the number of people having in-hospital, adverse reactions to prescribed drugs to be about 2.2 million per year. The numbers show 20 million unnecessary antibiotics prescribed annually for viral infections (use of antibiotics in factory-farming does even more harm). There are 8.9 million people unnecessarily hospitalized per year plus 7.5 million unnecessary medical and surgical procedures are performed.
However, the most stunning statistic Null unearthed is the total number of deaths due to all causes from medical intervention, 783,936 per year. This number easily makes conventional medical care the leading cause of death and injury in the US. As few as 5% and no more than 20% of iatrogenic acts (harmful results produced when good was intended) are compiled. If medical errors were completely and accurately reported, we would have an annual iatrogenic death toll very much higher than 783,936. To compare (in 2001), the number of deaths blamed on heart disease was 699,697; while the number of cancer deaths was 553,251.
The Contribution of Cytotoxic Chemotherapy to 5-year Survival in Adult Malignancies
Published in Clinical Oncology (2004) 16: 549-560.
By: Graeme Morgan*, Robyn Ward**, Michael Barton***at *Department of Radiation Oncology, Northern Sydney Cancer Centre, Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney, NSW; **Department of Medical Oncology, St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney, NSW; ***Collaboration for Cancer Outcomes Research and Evaluation, Liverpool Health Service, Sydney, NSW, Australia
The debate on the funding and availability of cytotoxic drugs raises questions about the contribution of curative or adjuvant cytotoxic chemotherapy to survival in adult cancer patients.
A literature search was made for randomized clinical trials reporting a 5-year survival benefit attributable solely to cytotoxic chemotherapy in adult malignancies. The total number of newly diagnosed cancer patients for 22 major adult malignancies was determined from cancer registry data in Australia and from the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results data in the USA for 1998.
For each malignancy, the absolute number to benefit was the product of (a) the total number of persons with that malignancy; (b) the proportion or subgroup(s) of that malignancy showing a benefit; and (c) the percentage increase in 5-year survival due solely to cytotoxic chemotherapy.
The overall contribution was the sum total of the absolute numbers showing a 5-year survival benefit expressed as a percentage of the total number for the 22 malignancies. The overall contribution of curative and adjuvant cytotoxic chemotherapy to 5-year survival in adults was estimated to be 2.3% in Australia and 2.1% in the USA.
As the 5-year relative survival rate for cancer in Australia is now over 60%, it is clear that cytotoxic chemotherapy only makes a minor contribution to cancer survival. To justify the continued funding and availability of drugs used in cytotoxic chemotherapy, a rigorous evaluation of the cost-effectiveness and impact on quality of life is urgently required.
How to fix our fraudulent failing disease care system? Start over. Stop supporting and subsidizing this corrupted form of societal suicide. Monopolistic modern Western medicine has become the leading cause of death in the modern world, surpassing heart disease, stroke and cancer. A health care system must have a different set of rewards, based on real results. Congress needs to create a level playing field for naturopathic, chiropractic, Eastern medicine, acupuncture, herbal and homeopathic medicines.
Sincerely,
Steven Green. DDS
