Comments on: The Mythology Of Science-Based Medicine

By: Ramona Shires

Ramona Shires — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 18:58:45 +0000

After my cancer surgery, I experienced many side effects of removing a large number of lymph nodes from my body. Doctors put me on a pill for swelling, not telling me that in addition to losing potassium, it causes magnesium loss too. I went for 7 years on the pill before I figured out through my own research the interdependence of magnesium with the other electrolytes in our body (sodium, potassium, and calcium). As a result of the continual depletion of magnesium, I ended up with a calcium deposit on my knee, which they operated on and messed up my knee from the surgery. I also experienced fibromyalgia type symptoms for most of those years.

After finding out about magnesium, I have been taking it daily, along with potassium. It has changed my life! I don’t pull my back out anymore, my joints don’t ache from excess sodium and the inflammation that comes from too much sodium, and my body isn’t as toxic because my excretory system works properly.

Did a doctor tell me this? Were they able to figure out that it was simply due to the imbalance of these key elements in my system? No. They never even looked. They would check my potassium, but unless you’re having a heart attack, they don’t even check the magnesium.

Recently I’ve finally started to see mainstream articles on the correlation between magnesium and cronic fatigue syndrome. How may other “syndromes” are caused by prescribed medication and poor nutrition? Where are the dollars for training medical professionals in these “alternative medicine” areas?

By: Alfa

Alfa — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 11:12:24 +0000

Since moving from the States to Vienna, Austria, I’ve had to become accustomed to not being overwhelmed with prescriptions and conventional medicines when I visit the doctor or pharmacy:
A few winters ago shortly after moving here, I had a slight cold & sore throat. I went to the ENT doctor to be sure the sore throat wasn’t anything to be concerned about. It wasn’t. The doctor told me to just “drink a lot of tea and juice”, and it will pass soon enough.
Frustrated that I didn’t leave with the usual stack of prescriptions, I went to the pharmacy. The pharmacies here are not self-serve, one must consult with the pharmacist at a counter, even to get all conventional, alternative & OTC meds, including aspirin or ibuprofen.
I explained to the pharmacist my situation, and her response was, “just drink a lot of tea and juice, and it will pass soon”. She didn’t even try to sell me anything!
I politely insisted that I wanted something for my throat and sinuses. She finally sold me a conventional nasal spray and herbal throat drops.
Here, in my experience, the pharmacists will sell conventional and alternative medicines equally, without discrimination from one to another. There is a basic, fee-based, gov’t-run public healthcare policy for everyone, plus the option for additional private coverage. Maybe this affects the cost of prescriptions, which I have found (even from big-name pharma co’s), to be less expensive than their American counterparts.
I have also read, on a gov’t website, that the government regulates their conv. & alt. pharmaceuticals in such a way so consumers are not subject to fantastic or falsified claims by manufacturers.
I now feel like I can truly trust the medical industry, that they’re not just trying to make money off me–but unfortunately, not when I spend time in the USA.
I hope that can change soon!
As a related side experience:
This set-up with the pharmacies has been beneficial to me on other occasions. Once I went to one for a cough that wouldn’t go away, for some simple cough medicine thinking I had a lingering cold. Because the cough was chronic (although very light) for two months, the pharmacist would not sell me any cough medicine and insisted I see my ENT. I was very lucky that she suggested that–it turns out the cough was from reflux, and if I had not seen the doctor about it, it could have worsened and affected my throat and lungs.

By: Karen, Redmond, WA

Karen, Redmond, WA — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 23:18:19 +0000

I’d like to see us start the change by breaking up the FDA. There is no incentive to improve the quality of our farming and livestock methods (which are known to be responsible for most of our cancers and chronic illnesses) when doing so would greatly reduce the need for pharmaceuticals. Big agra and pharma have paid off our politicians to allow this diet of disease to continue, because it brings in billions a year. Follow the money!

By: eturk

eturk — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 20:33:47 +0000

Amen! Deepak is an MD calling out that the Emperor has no clothes.

It doesn’t seem those that there really is a debate about health CARE. It’s really just been about insurance legislation. Even Obama finally tried to clarify it as Insurance Reform, not care reform.

I hope Deepak and other MDs can start a real debate. Alas, government is out of the business of what is best. It only legislates what already exists.

When will we look at education from scratch and design it for 2010, not teach what worked 100 years ago, of just to keep kids busy so they were out of the work force? When will we look at transportation for the 21st Century? Or jobs? And especially medicine?

Deepak, how could you actually create a national debate on real care? How can we get the media, CNN, etc. to do investigative reports again on all these failings? Why doesn’t every American know the 3rd leading cause of death is healthcare accidents? The media has failed us!