From Voodoo Economics to Voodoo Medicine

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: From Voodoo Economics to Voodoo Medicine

... in FACT, it is untrue, false and misleading that European and Canadian healthcare is inferior. The US is 37th in Health Performance ranked by the WHO

The adamant style of your reply here, Petertribo, with the upper case "FACT" and the thrice repeated terms "untrue, false and misleading", sounds like one slamming a door in my face .

One or two scalar metrics do not provide a proper basis for dismissing all comments or observations that do not highly correlate with that metric. The health, and health care, of a large and diverse population such as the United States or all of Europe or of China or of India has many aspects, not all well correlated nor well modeled by a scalar metric.

If you prefer not to consider such, that's ok. There may be others here with more curious minds.

[ax]

Re: From Voodoo Economics to Voodoo Medicine

Actually, I am not slamming foreign doctors. My point is that there are problems with nationalized health care (as far as immediate access to necessary care) as well. Limping around for 12 weeks to wait for the MRI that proves you have a torn ACL can be frustrating/reduce quality of life. There's a reason Detroit has more MRI facilities than any place in the U.S.; it's just a bridge or tunnel away from Canada. My patients have expressed such frustration to me.

On the other side of the coin, I treat many uninsured patients who routinely refuse necessary treatment, referrals to specialists, and testing due to costs.

[petertribo]

Re: From Voodoo Economics to Voodoo Medicine

The adamant style of your reply here, Petertribo, with the upper case "FACT" and the thrice repeated terms "untrue, false and misleading", sounds like one slamming a door in my face .

One or two scalar metrics do not provide a proper basis for dismissing all comments or observations that do not highly correlate with that metric. The health, and health care, of a large and diverse population such as the United States or all of Europe or of China or of India has many aspects, not all well correlated nor well modeled by a scalar metric.

If you prefer not to consider such, that's ok. There may be others here with more curious minds.

Others are free to express their opinions. When I see something posted by a "professional" which is untrue, false and misleading, I will call attention to it particularly if it involves life and death. As for large and diverse populations of course I am aware of that.

You ignore, by the way, the original "European" reference which is wrong as Europe does not have homogeneous healthcare but consists of different geopolitical entities. France is 1, Italy 2 and Sweden 23. All are individual countries in Europe. Or maybe you did not know that. So you recognize one diversity and ignore the other. Your curiosity is selective.

How my post affects "curious minds" is a mystery to me. I guess I have some Voodoo power over the BB.

Slamming Europeans and Canadians is no answer to America's 37th ranking by WHO nor to its many other very pressing problems.

[skyson]

Re: From Voodoo Economics to Voodoo Medicine

Hi,

This is my first post here, and as myself is in the health care field, I would like to share some interesting information here regarding this topic - classic western(orthodox) medicine vs. alternative medicine:

Very informative and eye opening website contains large amount of information regarding alternative medicine:

http://www.doctoryourself.com/

This is a documentary(full length: 1:19:29) about the Gerson Therapy for cancer and other chronic diseases. It also explores the fact that the orthodox medicine profession sanctions alternative medicine to protect their interest, and sometimes in direct conflict of their patient's interest:
Cancer Cure: Dying to Have Known (Gerson Therapy)

Here is a wonderful research done by medical doctors showing the orthodox medicine is actually the number one cause of death in US:
Death by Medicine

Enjoy!

[raja]

Re: From Voodoo Economics to Voodoo Medicine

Of course it is. Where did I suggest otherwise? If you are able to wade through reams of medical literature on your own, and understand the limitations and strengths of each study, without the advice of someone who has made it their profession and who has spent a lifetime trying to incorporate it into their practice, good on you. Most have trouble sorting it all out, especially without having the real life benefit of interacting with thousands of patients and having years of specific course study and continued education.

Is it not at least part of your motive to get to the bottom of what is wrong with medicine? That is what I intended by quest.

My quest is not to "get to the bottom of what is wrong with medicine" . . . I already know the answer.
I also know why you believe as you do, and are reacting to this thread as you are.

I don't see much point in continuing this discussion, but I will make one final comment, and that is that emergency medicine is the medical profession's primary contribution to humanity. Most of the rest is doing more harm than good . . . (and I know you strongly disagree with that).

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: From Voodoo Economics to Voodoo Medicine

Thank-you for the good links, skyson.

[Guest]

Re: From Voodoo Economics to Voodoo Medicine

Full respect extended to Jay and Ax here (and they deserve it), but my gut feelings are squarely with Petertribo's denunciation of a broken, dysfunctional health care system in the US. I've lived half my life in Europe, mostly in Italy. Their per capita GDP is considerably lower than the US, and they do have some severe fiscal problems, but the health care service scores better, period.

I lived in a rural area for five years, commuting to a provincial capital for work. I knew a lot of people in a rural setting. Health care was largely of the same quality for both the wealthy and the most humble, and everyone took it as a matter of course that this should be the core social contract for any civilized nation.

I have a chronic health issue I've struggled with for 13 years - not anything critical, but something I've had to look far beyond my HMO to try to resolve. My experience with everything from HMO's to private specialists ($500 per hour) in the US has been horrific. The most conscienceless "free market providers" it has been my misfortune to call upon.

I noted a common trait among several, spanning many years here in the US. Their interest in my progress was so strictly delimited to my currently paid up bill cycle, as to make them sometimes appear to be more of the accountant persuasion, than doctors. When the prospect of continuing consultations waned, the dissipation of interest was instantaneous.

A totally dysfunctional system which has put the "free market" so called "value" of a specialists' services on a pedestal and relegated the ailing citizen to a supplicant. I would not know what was so profoundly wrong with this entire system had I not lived 25 years in another country. And don't even ask me about the propensity to prescribe pharmaceuticals for everything while overtly implying to patients, that this alleviation is the final cure.

I don't just pan it. I think it sucks, and is a stigma of all the things that contradict America's purported position as the technological leader of the world. America: Technological leader, yet still exhibiting some primitive traits in it's social organization. And any libertarian here who tells me that available healthcare should be left strictly up to the free markets will leave me sorely irritated to hear their comment.

The inflation of prices in this sector is a runaway blight all by itself, which only becomes crystal clear when compared to other nations. And the inevitability of such high prices, as argued by it's US apologists for producing "leading edge medecine", is partially true, but in majority IMO bullshyte. Much the same healthcare is provided in other OECD nations at not remotely such high a cost.

Petertribo is spot on.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: From Voodoo Economics to Voodoo Medicine

Full respect extended to Jay and Ax here (and they deserve it), but my gut feelings are squarely with Petertribo's denunciation of a broken, dysfunctional health care system in the US. ... Petertribo is spot on.

I agree with your damning critique of the American health system. You tell a tale that makes sense and illustrates some of its failings.

Petertribo's post (the one I recall at least) got to a similar conclusion, but did so from a couple of WHO statistics, with the suggestion (as I read it) that since these statistics downrated the American health system, therefore there matter was decided, period. I don't find single linear stats from big distant organizations to be a trustworthy, much less decisive, indicator.

In short - right answer, wrong reason.

[Guest]

Re: From Voodoo Economics to Voodoo Medicine

Even the most egregious errors by the WHO could not put the US much further up that list if they were scrupulously corrected Pythonic. Once again full respects to Jay and Ax here, who presumably work some long hours and approach their patients with the very best concern and scruple. BTW, "Ax" is a wonderful nickname for a doc here. Nice and "wry".

I agree with your damning critique of the American health system. You tell a tale that makes sense and illustrates some of its failings.

Petertribo's post (the one I recall at least) got to a similar conclusion, but did so from a couple of WHO statistics, with the suggestion (as I read it) that since these statistics downrated the American health system, therefore there matter was decided, period. I don't find single linear stats from big distant organizations to be a trustworthy, much less decisive, indicator.

In short - right answer, wrong reason.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: From Voodoo Economics to Voodoo Medicine

Even the most egregious errors by the WHO could not put the US much further up that list if they were scrupulously corrected Pythonic.

I quite agree.

My distrust of the WHO stats was not that they ranked the USA too low. Rather my problem with their rating was that it could easily be explained away. For instance, perhaps that low rating just reflected the more diverse ethnic melting pot of the United States, and some sub-populations of the USA would have earned just as fine stats as the top rated nations, if accounted for separately. Not so, but could have been.

I grant scalar statistics from world organizations very little respect, even if, as in this case, they happened to have gotten roughly the right answer.

[petertribo]

Re: From Voodoo Economics to Voodoo Medicine

Hi,

This is my first post here, and as myself is in the health care field, I would like to share some interesting information here regarding this topic - classic western(orthodox) medicine vs. alternative medicine:

Thanks for posting that information. And congrats on your first post. I think we need folks who work in all these dysfunctional industries to get their message out to their fellow citizens. Humanity comes before $$$ and business interest. I know I have tried in my life to disconnect as much as possible from the FIRE and other predatory Industries and Government Licensed Monopolies we see in everyday life. I am going to look at particularly the iatrogenic report and see how the finances break down.

In the thread Nassim Taleb: Ten principles for a Black Swan-proof world
http://www.itulip.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9278

he makes this suggestion:

3. People who were driving a school bus blindfolded (and crashed it) should never be given a new bus. The economics establishment (universities, regulators, central bankers, government officials, various organisations staffed with economists) lost its legitimacy with the failure of the system. It is irresponsible and foolish to put our trust in the ability of such experts to get us out of this mess. Instead, find the smart people whose hands are clean. [my bold]

That sounds to me like a very good description of the failed, dysfunctional US Monopolistic "Health" System and its associates in the Insurance of FIRE. Deadly combo. So, personally, I would like to see the smart people whose hands are clean in charge.

I suggest that Taleb's Black Swan is a good reading companion to Nortin Hadler's, The Last Well Person. A lot of crossover. I would love to see Taleb write a book on Medicine and its so-called scientific methods and other nostrums.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: From Voodoo Economics to Voodoo Medicine

I would love to see Taleb write a book on Medicine and its so-called scientific methods and other nostrums.

Taleb has recently gone on his own personal health kick. For him, this meant sharply cutting back on carbs and increasing his exercise.

As stated at http://business.timesonline.co.uk/to...cle4022091.ece, Taleb is:

following the thinking of Arthur De Vany, an economist – of the acceptable type – turned fitness guru. The theory is that we eat and exercise according to our evolved natures. Early man did not eat carbs, so they’re out. He did not exercise regularly and he did not suffer long-term stress by having an annoying boss. Exercise must be irregular and ferocious.

De Vany's website is at http://www.arthurdevany.com/. De Vany is in his 70's, and doing rather well, it seems.

[labasta]

Re: From Voodoo Economics to Voodoo Medicine

My Dad is an alternative health care professional. Every time I see him I get another downright scary story on the so called "health profession".

Check this story out, which I got from him a few weeks ago.

http://drtenpenny.com/biological_weapons.aspx

This scared the shit out of me. People are sheep. They believe authority. They believe what is told to them. They believe their drug pushers.. sorry... doctors. They believe in vaccines, especially, the older members of society.

I think it's because they come form a time of great information control, mainly through limited wireless programmes, (the ww2 generation).

The internet generation will hopefully give them the two fingers.

As has already been implied, the health care industry is just that: an industry. It worships mammon like other industries (especially FIRE), it just happens to be in the life preserving industry which makes it despicable as of course money always comes before anything else, including life preserving, if the two conflict in interest.


Some stories can make your blood boil and want an angry mob to go and kill the entire upper echelons of the FDA. These guys are just as corrupt as FIRE. It belies belief.

As a good Jewish friend of father's told me circa 1990 that having power through money is cheap. It only takes about 100,000 Deutsch Marks to bribe anyone in authority. When I look back on that comment, I realize he was speaking through experience.

Maybe, the nutshell is the money/morality balance. At the moment, money takes precedent over morality. I hope to see a planet where morality has the upper hand. I'm 35, so if I live till 80/90, then I "may" just see it.

Maybe this turmoil is it.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: From Voodoo Economics to Voodoo Medicine

Maybe, the nutshell is the money/morality balance.

Morals are the habits of healthy, substainable living.

Long standing cultures, communities and religions develop a code of moral ethics by which they expect their members to live, which are instilled in the young, and which serve them well in good times and hard. The moral code becomes part of the "memory" of the community, that survives across the generations.

The community of mankind has changed a whole bunch in just my lifetime. It lacks such time tested rules applicable to its new circumstances.

We are now attending the school of hard knocks. Perhaps in a century or three, we will have learned the lessons we are missing now.

[Jay]

Re: From Voodoo Economics to Voodoo Medicine

This scared the shit out of me. People are sheep. They believe authority. They believe what is told to them. They believe their drug pushers.. sorry... doctors. They believe in vaccines, especially, the older members of society.

It was a much better world when everyone had the opportunity to get smallpox.