Momtezuma Tuatara
09-07-09, 10:28 AM
Hello vaccine defenders? Have you had your fingers stuck in your ears for the last seven years? :giggle:
http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/reprint/167/4/363.pdf
Preventive medicine displays all 3 elements of arrogance. First, it is
aggressively assertive, pursuing symptomless individuals and telling them what they must do to remain healthy. Occasionally invoking the force of law (immunizations, seat belts), it prescribes and proscribes for both individual patients and the general citizenry of every age and stage. Second, preventive medicine is presumptuous, confident that the interventions it espouses will, on average, do more good than harm to those who accept and adhere to them. Finally, preventive medicine is overbearing, attacking those who question the value of its recommendations.
....
What about the villains? Who is to blame for the widespread application of this and the other harmful “preventive” interventions that cause disability and untimely death? I suggest that we not waste time blaming the manufacturers of “preventive” drugs and devices, for they are pursuing profit, not health, and anyone who looks to their print advertisements and television spots for health guidance arguably deserves whatever harm comes to them (according to the
New York Times4 the company that supplied the study drug has already sent 500 000 “Dear Doctor” letters stressing the symptomatic benefits of their combination). Nor, I suggest, should we blame “demanding” patients who insist on receiving some bogus preventive intervention of unknown efficacy, for they are simply doing their best to improve their lives in an “evidence-vacuum.”
I place the blame directly on the medical “experts” who, to gain private profit (from their industry affiliations), to satisfy a narcissistic need for public acclaim or in a misguided attempt to do good, advocate “preventive” manoeuvres that have never been validated in rigorous randomized. Not only do they abuse their positions by advocating unproven “preventives,” they also stifle dissent. Others, who should know better than to promote “preventive” manoeuvres without clinical trials evidence, are simply wrongheaded.
When a 1997 systematic review of 23 trials of postmenopausal hormone therapy concluded that this treatment substantially increased the risk of cardiovascular disease,5 the attack on its results included a public announcement from a prominent editorialist: “For one, I shall continue to tell my patients that hormone replacement therapy is likely to help prevent coronary disease.”6
Experts refuse to learn from history until they make it themselves, and the price for their arrogance is paid by the innocent.
Preventive medicine is too important to be led by them.
http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/reprint/167/4/363.pdf
Preventive medicine displays all 3 elements of arrogance. First, it is
aggressively assertive, pursuing symptomless individuals and telling them what they must do to remain healthy. Occasionally invoking the force of law (immunizations, seat belts), it prescribes and proscribes for both individual patients and the general citizenry of every age and stage. Second, preventive medicine is presumptuous, confident that the interventions it espouses will, on average, do more good than harm to those who accept and adhere to them. Finally, preventive medicine is overbearing, attacking those who question the value of its recommendations.
....
What about the villains? Who is to blame for the widespread application of this and the other harmful “preventive” interventions that cause disability and untimely death? I suggest that we not waste time blaming the manufacturers of “preventive” drugs and devices, for they are pursuing profit, not health, and anyone who looks to their print advertisements and television spots for health guidance arguably deserves whatever harm comes to them (according to the
New York Times4 the company that supplied the study drug has already sent 500 000 “Dear Doctor” letters stressing the symptomatic benefits of their combination). Nor, I suggest, should we blame “demanding” patients who insist on receiving some bogus preventive intervention of unknown efficacy, for they are simply doing their best to improve their lives in an “evidence-vacuum.”
I place the blame directly on the medical “experts” who, to gain private profit (from their industry affiliations), to satisfy a narcissistic need for public acclaim or in a misguided attempt to do good, advocate “preventive” manoeuvres that have never been validated in rigorous randomized. Not only do they abuse their positions by advocating unproven “preventives,” they also stifle dissent. Others, who should know better than to promote “preventive” manoeuvres without clinical trials evidence, are simply wrongheaded.
When a 1997 systematic review of 23 trials of postmenopausal hormone therapy concluded that this treatment substantially increased the risk of cardiovascular disease,5 the attack on its results included a public announcement from a prominent editorialist: “For one, I shall continue to tell my patients that hormone replacement therapy is likely to help prevent coronary disease.”6
Experts refuse to learn from history until they make it themselves, and the price for their arrogance is paid by the innocent.
Preventive medicine is too important to be led by them.