[onlooker]

DEATH BY MEDICINE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxUfPBhipLA

[dissident]

DEATH BY MEDICINE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxUfPBhipLA

I guess the profit motive ain't the angelic, magical wellspring of goodness that it is made out to be. We all know humans never take short cuts or cheat...

The hospital malpractice is the other side of the coin. This what you get when doctors are too secure in their jobs due to them being always in short supply. The law lets doctors and nurses get away with murder since "sh*t happens" and they are only required work according to the best of their ability. So an unqualified family doctor who decides to subject you to all sorts of pointless treatments when you have cancer and does not refer you to an oncologist is doing his job perfectly according to the law. Malpractice lawsuits are no longer effective since there is a thick layer of insurance protecting the perps and everyone pays for this insurance through medical costs.

[onlooker]

Yes Dissident, like everything else in the US, over time excessive greed and the profit motive have conferred benefitsto few and hardships to many. The American dream has become ever more elusive to ever more Americans

[Outcast_Searcher]

Let's pretend like statistics or context don't matter.

Let's pretend like conventional medicine isn't involved when 99% of people die.

So, let's pretend like my girlfriend, who lived a very "clean" life, never drinking, smoking, doing illegal drugs, etc. dying of cancer at 48 was "caused" by conventional medicine, which didn't find it in time.

Or let's pretend like my father dying at 85 after 6 months of constantly fighting a plethora of various symptoms/problems since he fell and broke his hip, was "caused" by conventional medicine, since they couldn't stop his body from general, gradual, shutdown.

Or let's pretend like my other dying suddenly at home at 77, in the throes of moderate level alzheimers was modern medicine's fault. As though her increasingly bad memory and erratic behavior, including refusing (randomly) to follow doctors' orders and my advice and do things like take her BP medicine (which she'd needed for at least 4 decades) had NOTHING to do with her massive stroke.

Because, somehow, to those with little education or scientific or mathematical knowledge, that kind of thinking makes them feel better, so of course, it MUST BE TRUE.

Hint: If modern medicine is used by, say, 98% of people in the first world, especially the elderly with significant health issues, then modern medicine will be within arms length of "someone to blame" when people in the first world die.

So what should we do? Abolish modern medicine?

As someone who needs BP, etc. medicine daily, that gets a strong "no" vote, FWIW.

...

That's not to say modern medicine, the AMA, etc. couldn't be BETTER, btw. But as usual, making the imperfect the enemy of the good is as sensible as believing the earth is flat.

[onlooker]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WF_14hSs4z8

"97% of the time chemotherapy doesn't work, so why do we still do it?"

[KaiserJeep]

Outcast Searcher, you surprised me by thinking/discussing an emotional issue like Healthcare with logic. Most Peak Oil members are still shying away from this topic after the prior thread where I pointed out how illogical and how outright incorrect and how foolish it was to care for oneself to make yourself FEEL GOOD, versus the ever-sound medical advice to eat less, eat healthy, and exercise more.

This latest thread would be an attempt to justify what they all simply want to do, by deluding themselves some more by saying (in effect) that doctors are worse than disease. Most of that is simple human nature, a desire to discard sound medical advice because it is difficult to adhere to. The rest of it is something that deserves to be discussed:

Americans Fear Medical Bills More Than Sickness

We won’t get healthier until healthcare becomes less expensive.

HUNT LAWRENCE AND DANIEL J. FLYNN

March 29, 2018, 12:52 am

Newton, Massachusetts police arrested a disturbed man outside of a Star Market on Tuesday for twice stabbing a 79-year-old man. The 23-year-old alleged assailant, upset that his fellow shopper’s carriage bumped his, informed police that he had stabbed “the bad man.”

The incident appears as an entirely preventable one. The young man’s father told WFXT in Boston that insurance cut off his son’s stay in a mental institution, and his medication, days prior to the attack.

“My kid, he was admitted to the hospital,” the alleged assailant’s dad told the local Fox affiliate. “He’s been there for four weeks. He’s been released early because insurance won’t cover his stay in the hospital.”

The victim of the attack, himself a physician, obliquely expressed sympathy for his alleged attacker through his employer, Boston Children’s Hospital.

“Dr. David Harris is already back to work (Tuesday) at Boston Children’s Hospital and he’s doing fine,” the statement read. “He wanted to share a message that access to mental health care is vital and it is important that patients are given an appropriate amount of treatment time before they are discharged.”

The anecdote helps illuminate the findings of a poll released a day after the attack.

The West Health Institute, through National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, surveyed Americans on healthcare an expense. Three quarters of respondents believe Americans do not receive good value for their healthcare expenditures, 44 percent did not visit a doctor when sick or injured because of the expense, and more of the people who reported skipping a test said they feared the financial expenses associated with such tests over the health consequences.

Remainder is at: https://spectator.org/poll-americans-fear-medical-bills-more-than-sickness/

[KaiserJeep]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WF_14hSs4z8

"97% of the time chemotherapy doesn't work, so why do we still do it?"

You have GOT TO BE KIDDING.

Peter Glidden is not a "Doctor". His degrees are BS (an undergraduate degree in something - anything) and ND (which stands for "Natureopathic Doctor", a meaningless invented term, not equivalent to any variety of PHD). He can prescribe certain classes of drugs and perform minor outpatient surgeries and the like, but not because he is an "ND", which was obviously intended to resemble "MD". NDs and PAs (physicians assistants, mostly ex-military medics) and RNs (registered nurses) all have the same medical qualifications after passing the same state medical exam.

Note that that same state medical license would also entitle him to peddle snake oil, which is effectively what he is doing. The market for alternatives to conventional medicine is huge, because most people cannot and do not even want to eat healthy, eat less, and exercise more.

Just so you understand the statistics, I'll make it explicit. There ARE IN FACT forms of chemotherapy where the patients survive at the rate of 3% or so. These are the most advanced forms of the most lethal cancers. Then there are less advanced forms of less lethal cancers, such as for example leukemia, for which the survival rate when detected early and treated aggressively exceeds 95%. Don't generalize your thinking about cancer, see a cancer specialist.

[Outcast_Searcher]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WF_14hSs4z8

"97% of the time chemotherapy doesn't work, so why do we still do it?"

Because people would rather cling to hope than admit it is their time and give up. Because a huge proportion of peoples' friends and families will chide them and pressure them to "fight", and statistics and quality of life be damned.

I claim this because I've personally seen it all too often. Much of the pressure and decision making is selfish and is cultural, instead of rational.

But look what happens when politicians try to look at funding and make a rational policy decision. If in doubt, consider what happened when mammography screening guidelines were changed based on evidence, considering factors like risk and cost.

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencen ... story.html

The US, led by female politicians (courting votes) went ballistic, citing various individual cases of a friend or family member, etc.

Good luck making "evidence based medicine" widely adopted/supported, in an environment where politics and emotion rule.

...

When my dad's primary cited statistics recommending how long to leave him in the hospital during one incident for best likely outcome, he looked stunned when I said "I love doctors who use statistics". How upside-down can we be?

[Newfie]

Outcast,
The local hospital gave my Dad a drug he was allergic to. When he reacted poorly they doubled down on the dosage.

His primary Dr. at the hospital where he died, the one who was giving us “quality of life” arguments fed his two hound daughters and wife poison for breakfast before killing himself.

My Mother died of a hospital induced gall bladder infection. She went in for a mild heart attack and was to be released the day after she died.

One day I took something to my then wife at her RN job in an ICU unit. She and her comrades had rock and roll blaring in the unit. I noted that this was likely uncomfortable for the 3 patients. She said “Oh them? They don’t mind their zoned out, we are just helping them out the door.” That marriage didn’t last.

I can go on and on.