How Government Killed the Medical Profession

[Mary]

There were well-documented studies indicating that laetrile could be effective in treating cancer but a request for clinical trials was refused by the FDA. It's a complicated well-documented story and I cannot do it justice in a few paragraphs. There's a documentary called Second Opinion which tells the story. See https://www.change.org/p/requesting...dium=email&utm_campaign=petition_update_email for more info. There are several links if you go to this site for more info.

This isn't the only promising cancer treatment which has been buried. IV vitamin C is another one. It's crazy.

Another good book is The Cancer Industry by Ralph Moss, who was employed by Sloan Kettering. This book documents several potential cancer treatments which have been squashed. Why? It sounds too cynical but the most likely reason is money. Cancer is very big business. The American Cancer Society owns an interest in one of the major chemo drugs.

The irony of course is that chemo drugs are extremely toxic carcinogens. I can't debate this here. I just suggest you do more reading.

 

[alex3619]

A lot of these claims about quashed treatments are bogus. Its hard to pick out the real stories from the fake.

However here is one that is very very well documented. Antibiotic therapy to treat gastric ulcers was ignored for one to two decades. Big pharma had a huge role in that, as antacids were a huge industry. They paid for the conferences, and they stipulated that gastric ulcer antibiotic therapy was not to be mentioned. Later the guy who discovered the therapy shared a Nobel Prize, but at the time he was almost struck off the medical register.

 

[Wayne]

Doctors have lost control of their own profession. This all started in the UK, and in the US is complicated by different insurance companies having different variations on how they want things done.

Alex, your above points are expounded on in this NY Times article. The author takes aim at, and lambastes the insurance companies instead of the government--in fact doesn't mention the government even once.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/19/o...d=nytcore-ipad-share&smprod=nytcore-ipad&_r=0

 

[Tired of being sick]

The insurance corporations writes the rules and laws while controlling/overseeing medical education..

The government is under these insurance corporations as the government is only in place to serve these corperate interests such as enforcing all of the above...

Simple as that........

This goes for ALL mega corporations of the world..

What does that mean?

Government is for the corporations by the corporations...

 

[barbc56]

IF Vitamin C has a protective affect, it's speculated it also may protect the cancer cells.

Do we need a separate thread on this subject? I have no opinion either way as far as a starting another thread but thought I would ask. I haven't had time to read all the information.

Barb

 

[chipmunk1]

i think before EBM there was a lot of quackery and dogma now with EBM there is a bit less quackery but even more dogma. going non-EBM again would not solve any problem however.

 

[JAM]

Putting these on my Santa wish list, thank you

You're welcome. Neither text is perfect, but they are definitely food for thought.

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

BTW, the person who wrote the above article is associated with the Cato institute which has an "iffy" reputation.

Barb

That was what it sounded like.

So it seems that he is complaining about Big Government killing the medical business. Yet his evidence for this is that he can no longer recommend whatever treatment he thinks he can sell people and bill Medicaid for it. Medicaid are saying they are not paying. That sounds a bit like weeny small government to me. But then some doctors were always more interested in a big house and three cars than logical thinking.

The truth is that doctors didn't lose control of their profession - they sold it for what they could get and now they are surprised there is no money left in the kitty.

Sure there are problems with bureaucracy - but they were brought in to try to stop doctors ripping people off and inflating their egos as much as anything.

 

[Tired of being sick]

Sure there are problems with bureaucracy - but they were brought in to try to stop doctors ripping people off and inflating their egos as much as anything.

Ripping people off?

Last I checked, healthcare costs are at all time highs..

I think I'd rather see the doctor get paid than a middle man who does nothing but collect money for nothing..

 

[Iquitos]

The problem isn't the government, it is the lobbyists and the corporations. Welcome to the oligarchy.

Yes, especially the insurance industry. They're like the fox guarding the henhouse. It companies like UNUM that want everything to be squeezed into a "code" so they can find "reasons" to deny care or delay, delay, delay.

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

Ripping people off?

Last I checked, healthcare costs are at all time highs..

I think I'd rather see the doctor get paid than a middle man who does nothing but collect money for nothing..

Indeed but I can think of two situations where no middle men got anything: the UK NHS in the 1970s and the healthcare systems in the Soviet block prior to its disintegration. It's called socialism and I don't think the author of this piece would be too keen on that. I only just noticed that this piece is actually sponsored by the Cato organisation - it is in the URL.

I suspect this guy is all in favour of those nasty corporations.

 

[Marco]

Indeed but I can think of two situations where no middle men got anything: the UK NHS in the 1970s and the healthcare systems in the Soviet block prior to its disintegration. It's called socialism and I don't think the author of this piece would be too keen on that.

Actually Jonathan wasn't a socialist who decided to "stuff their mouths with gold"? As for communism - well that worked out well didn't it?

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

Actually Jonathan wasn't a socialist who decided to "stuff their mouths with gold"? As for communism - well that worked out well didn't it?

Yes, that was Bevan's key mistake, to let the GPs remain private commercial operators and pay them off - note that it was the doctors he paid off though, not middlemen, which was the point raised. And inflation had rapidly put paid to medical salaries by the time I came along.

And I guess communism has worked out pretty well for some. Which economy is doing best right now? Maybe Red China? Seen the roads around Shanghai recently, and those in the USA? And most Russians think things are worse since Gorbachev did the old perestroika thing. Not that I am personally a communist but there is a saying 'plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose'.

 

[Marco]

Yes, that was Bevan's key mistake, to let the GPs remain private commercial operators and pay them off - note that it was the doctors he paid off though, not middlemen, which was the point raised. And inflation had rapidly put paid to medical salaries by the time I came along.

And I guess communism has worked out pretty well for some. Which economy is doing best right now? Maybe Red China? Seen the roads around Shanghai recently, and those in the USA? And most Russians think things are worse since Gorbachev did the old perestroika thing. Not that I am personally a communist but there is a saying 'plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose'.

C'mon Jonathan 100k plus isn't exactly penury.

'Red China' has never been 'red'. The Chinese are a very old and wise and dare I say pragmatic people who know how to go with the flow and remain essentially Chinese regardless of the prevailing political orientation which also extends to the politburo. Kind of explains why they are now the world's biggest importer of luxury goods until recently when Remy Martin was banned for party officials (hasn't half hurt the trade here I can tell you), - but oh the humanity!

Thing is I can never understand why it can't be possible to agree with the principles of the NHS (which you know well enough that I needn't repeat) while also suggesting that the funding, management and delivery of the service can't be improved. Unless we continue to stuff their mouths with gold.

 

[Marco]

PS - I may have avoided the issue of 'middlemen' but then there are the ultimate interlocateurs between employers and employees who haven't exactly played a constructive role over the year (especially in the blessed 1970s).

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

C'mon Jonathan 100k plus isn't exactly penury.

'Red China' has never been 'red'. The Chinese are a very old and wise and dare I say pragmatic people who know how to go with the flow and remain essentially Chinese regardless of the prevailing political orientation which also extends to the politburo. Kind of explains why they are now the world's biggest importer of luxury goods until recently when Remy Martin was banned for party officials (hasn't half hurt the trade here I can tell you), - but oh the humanity!

Thing is I can never understand why it can't be possible to agree with the principles of the NHS (which you know well enough that I needn't repeat) while also suggesting that the funding, management and delivery of the service can't be improved. Unless we continue to stuff their mouths with gold.

Indeed the salaries then started going up again when governments wanted to manipulate the GPs around 1990. So now very few UK doctors would complain about their salary - just about the impossibility of delivering safe effective care.

There is no problem about improving the funding, management and delivery of the NHS. It is simple:

1. Spend about half ($4.6K) what they do in the US per capita ($9.2K) instead of the $3.7K it is now. Just think of it, a 25% increase in NHS spending (quite apart from savings below) would be all we need and that would still be only half what they spend in the USA. Since 75% of NHS spending is tied to the most basic infrastructure a 25% increase ($60billion) would have a huge impact. People might actually have a good service. All very easy.

2. And: Abolish the primary/secondary care distinction and the 'internal market' so that we do not have GPs wasting most of their time trying to stop people seeing someone who might actually know what the problem is. Most GPs should be part of a hospital team based somewhere where you can do something like a blood test or an X-ray. When I went to the walk in clinic in Zermatt last Xmas I had bloods and an ECG done before seeing the doctor. The irony is that the economic pressure to do this is so great it will probably actually happen within about 4 years despite it being the opposite of government policy.

3. Sack 90% of administrators whose time is spend entirely on moving money around within the system and trying to reduce the amount of money spent (on them trying to reduce the amount of money spent (on them trying to reduce ....

But the real problem seems to have been identified by Plato - who said that democracy would never work because the politicians would just take bribes to reduce the amount of taxes collected and the whole thing would collapse - or something like that. And the Cato institute seems a very good example.

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

Or we could even spend as much as Holland - an extra $120Bn or an extra 45%. There would be champagne on tap in outpatients.

 

[natasa778]

Antibiotic therapy to treat gastric ulcers was ignored for one to two decades. Big pharma had a huge role in that, as antacids were a huge industry. They paid for the conferences, and they stipulated that gastric ulcer antibiotic therapy was not to be mentioned. Later the guy who discovered the therapy shared a Nobel Prize, but at the time he was almost struck off the medical register.

Hard to imagine a single doctor today, one who is working within a dogmatic system (be it NHS or any other) coming up with, let alone testing, such a 'brave' and inventive theory. Guardians of the Dogma would see that he is ridiculed and run to the ground long before he/she was able to reach evidence stage.

If it was bad for outside-the-box thinkers 30 years ago, it is much worse today imo.

 

[JamBob]

In the UK we don't really have insurance companies dictating everything. However there has been a big push for patients formerly treated in the hospital to now be treated in the community and this has led to an increasing use of tickbox protocols and simplistic guidelines.

In the past, I used to see a hospital consultant for T1 diabetes, then I saw a specialist nurse in a hospital. Latterly, the hospital employed an (incompetent) GP to run the hospital clinic for diabetics. These days I only see a GP practice nurse who admits that nurses aren't trained to deal with T1 diabetes and just ticks boxes to score income-related points. From a patient point of view, it seems like a progressive dumbing down.

I imagine next that all diabetics will be transferred to the GP receptionists for their annual reviews as apparently with EBM protocols, diabetes management is so easy and you don't really need any training to tick the boxes.

I would support a continental style system and believe that we should pay more tax to improve the system. However, British people are always aping the US, so we'll probably end up with a US-style health system in a few years.

 

[Valentijn]

Or we could even spend as much as Holland - an extra $120Bn or an extra 45%. There would be champagne on tap in outpatients.

The Netherlands is running into a big problem with private insurers (who have to offer certain services) raising premiums, reducing what they cover, and reducing choices of patients regarding which doctors and hospitals they can visit. The current health minister (Edith Schippers) seems to be very pro-business and anti-patient on many topics, and does not seem inclined to do anything about this trend. So insurance companies have been earning and stockpiling much more money than they are spending on patient care, while premiums still rise.

Basic birth control (the pill) was removed from being required by plans a couple years ago, and deductibles are increasing, which discourages preventative and pre-emergency visits. So basically costs are being permitted to shift from the insurance companies to government agencies who will be picking up the fallout from these policies.