Warning: the medical profession may seriously damage your health.

national | rights, freedoms and repression | opinion/analysis Wednesday March 22, 2006 20:25 by Gaz B - drogheda

Unless you're dead you've probably all heard about how shittty Irelands health service is. Our minister for health has her own 'Mary Harney Suite' (it's a corridor full of trolleys) in Tallaght hospital. A decade of unprecedented economic growth has proved that throwing money at a problem won't make it go away. So what’s the answer I hear you say? Well.....a doctors strike if we are to believe the evidence.

Whenever there has been a doctor’s strike, deaths rates have nearly always decreased. In Columbia 1976 when doctors went on strike for 52 days, the death rate dropped by 35%. In 1976 in LA, deaths dropped by18% when doctors went on strike, ironically, to protest against malpractice insurance premiums. The same thing happened in Israel in 1973. The strike lasted a month and according to the Jerusalem Burial Society, the Israeli death rate dropped 50%. The only other time there had been such a decrease in mortality rates was 20 years earlier when there was another strike.

Do no harm" used to be the mantra of the medical profession yet in the US medical intervention is the 3rd leading cause of death behind heart disease and cancer. Almost 250,000 people die every year in the US due to iatrogenesis. Figures for iatrogenic deaths in Ireland are, conveniently, not collected.

The figures for deaths break down as
195,000 deaths due to hospital error, 106,000 negative effects of drugs, 80,000 infections in hospitals, 20,000 other errors in hospitals and 7,000 medication errors in hospitals.

With figures like these you can't really blame people for turning to alternative medicine. The recent revelations about Dr. Michael Neary carrying out hundreds of unnecessary operations involving sawing pelvises and removing wombs on unsuspecting women and the proceeding cover-up have confirmed alot of people belief about the attitude of those in the Irish health service.

A major reason for the high numbers of deaths by medical intervention is the privatisation of health care, especially in the US. The last thing a health system run for profit wants is an outbreak of good health. Privatisation often means that doctors are overworked and the last thing you want is some tired, broken person giving you drugs or operating on you. It also means that “non-profitable” activities such as the cleaning of wards are often neglected leading to an increase in hospital infections. In Irelands case, it's largely down to bureaucracy, poor management and lack of proper investment.

One of the more worrying developments is the over-prescription of drugs. Pharmaceutical companies spend millions developing drugs, money that has to be recouped. In order to sell drugs drug companies have been caught lying about test results and giving "donations" to both politicians and the medical profession. The Journal of The American Medical Association states that prescription drugs kill over 100,000 people a year in US hospitals. Patients suffering from adverse drug reactions take one in seven hospital beds up. The US congress passed a law to prevent parents of autistic children from suing pharmaceutical companies over childhood vaccines said to cause brain damage.

In America, one person dies every 3 minutes from due to side effects of approved legal drugs. This is almost 5 times the numbers who die each year from illegal drugs.

Doctors are increasingly becoming drug pushers themselves. In Australia drug companies spend on average $10,000 per year per doctor marketing their drugs. Drug companies offer medical students gifts, free trips to "conferences", and free "educational material," which is basically propaganda on that drug company's products all of which leads to a massive over prescription of drugs.

The practice can be most clearly seen in the treatment of non-chemically related depression (depression not caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain). The causes of non-chemically related depression have traditionally been the death of a loved one, divorce, separation, breakdown of the family, financial problems etc yet the medical profession often treats this type of depression with drugs. The idea that social and economic problems can be treated with drugs is the drug companies dream scenario - life’s problems can be solved by taking a pill. Unfortunately the FDA has shown that antidepressants such as Prozac Zoloft, Paxil, Luvox, Celexa, and Lexapro can actually increase the likelihood of suicide. Known side affects can include anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, insomnia, irritability, hostility, impulsivity, severe restlessness and mania. The FDA states that antidepressant-induced behaviours is often "identical to that of PCP, methamphetamine and cocaine"—drugs known to cause aggression and violence.

The Neary case has shown once again that irish society has had an unquestioning acceptance of authority and to some extent still does. The abuse of kids in state instituitions, paedo priests, corrupt politicians and the likes of Neary were allowed to happen because people were afraid to speak out. Those that did speak out where people lower down on the food chain and were ridiculed, ostracised or dismissed as cynics for their efforts.

If Milgrim has thought us anything it's the idea that "doctor knows best" or anyone in authority or with a suit knows best should always to questioned and challenged. Cynics of the world unite.