Evidence of govenrment cover-up re: vaccines and autism - Page 10

[pers]

Originally Posted by Chicharronita 

Yes. I don't know how any of them can live with themselves when virtually nothing they do helps people with myriad chronic health problems besides giving some kind of drug with "side" effects that can be just as bad as the problem.

Cooky? Mmmm sounds tasty. 

Well, yeah, it's got to be frustrating when you can't cure something.  However, many of those drugs do as they are supposed to though and improve overall quality of life and longevity.  Do you think it was any less frustrating dealing with illness back before when doctors didn't have something to offer them that would likely help?

Or consider chronic illnesses that doctors can help very well.  The average life expectancy of a patient with cystic fibrosis has more than doubled over just the last thirty or so years and is expected to continue to rise.  Someday gene therapy may even offer a cure.  A diagnoses of diabetes used to mean certain death within a few months or, at most, a couple years of diagnoses. Now doctors still can't cure diabetes, but type one diabetics have pretty much the same life expectancy as non-diabetics.  

Not to mention acute illness. My grandmother came very close to dying from an ear infection as a small child and was left with permanent damage and partial hearing loss. I can not begin to imagine how much agony she must have been in.  Nowadays such an infection would be nipped in the bud with a course of antibiotics.  

Every day, doctors see parents who don't know if their child's ongoing or different than they have experienced before illness is something to worry about or not and reassure them that the kid just needs a little more rest and time or, less commonly but more important, finds that it is something serious and treats it. Every day doctors around the world catch cancer and other potentially deadly illnesses/conditions in the early stages when they are still treatable/survivable.  Every day doctors diagnose physical abnormalities or delays in development in children at the ages where intervention can be most effective but parents may not have notice it yet. 

The list could go on and on and on.  The idea that all doctors have to offer are vaccines and useless drugs that cause more problems than they solve is completely absurd.  

[WildKingdom]

Originally Posted by Chicharronita 

Yes. I don't know how any of them can live with themselves when virtually nothing they do helps people with myriad chronic health problems besides giving some kind of drug with "side" effects that can be just as bad as the problem.

Cooky? Mmmm sounds tasty. 

Honestly, it sounds like you are coming from an extremely privileged place where you and your loved ones enjoy generally good health.

Maybe it's time for a picture tutorial.

When is the last time you saw someone who looks like this:

That's a patient with end-stage AIDS.  The last time I saw someone like that was about 11 years ago.  Antiretroviral therapy has come so far that you just don't see that anymore in people with access to treatment.  My current HIV patients are doing great- you wouldn't be able to pick them out of a room full of people.

When is the last time you saw a hand that looks like this?

That is psoriatic arthritis mutilans- a destructive type of psoriatic arthritis.  You've probably never seen it.  That is because the disease modifying drugs and biologic drugs now available to manage destructive types of arthritis are nothing short of a miracle.  

What do you think of this chest x-ray?

Those are called "cannonball mets."  It is testicular cancer that has metastasized to the lung.  Unfortunately, I have seen chest xrays like this recently.  However, 20 years ago a patient with the chest x-ray would have been dead in a few months.  Today, patients like this are cured.  Not put into remission. Cured.  Young guys, with death hanging over their head, going on to live a totally normal life.

So, how do I live with my self?

Very, very well, thank you.  Every morning I get to go to a job I love where I help people immensely.  Even when I can't "fix" them, I am there to hold their hand and cry with them.  Every night I get to go to sleep knowing I've made a difference in people's lives.  I'm blessed. 

[pek64]

For every example of healing and helping there can be an example of misdiagnosis or some other harm. One of my nephews wears hearing aids in both ears because chronic ear infections (treated with antibiotics) left him partially deaf. He, too, suffered pain, much like pers' grandmother. And there's the woman on Oprah, thanking Dr Oz for giving her the courage to stand up for herself and tell her surgeon she thought he had left some cancer behind after performing a mastectomy. It turned out he had left ALL of the cancer behind.

Anecdotal evidence is available on both sides.

[Rrrrrachel]

Except the examples aren't one to one. Doctors help and even cure way more people than they harm. I can't believe we're even having this conversation.

[kathymuggle]

Originally Posted by Adaline'sMama 

 These comments are precisely why I feel like so many people who are researching vax wind up thinking that anti/delayed vax people are cooky. 

. 

Or perhaps it is because the other side keeps re-inforcing anything they see as kookiness?

And kookiness has extended to delayed now, as well?

I think we must be reading different forums….turquesa, marnica, mammunchkin, rachelmama and several others I am sure I am missing friggin rock  when it comes to discussing vaccines logically….  and they are all sel/del or non-vax.

In any event, someone can be kooky in some ways and still be right (just as someone can be bitchy and still be right, not know how to spell, but is good at math, etc, etc).  

[Rrrrrachel]

You're right Kathy. Most of the mamas around here are not kooky. Unfortunately the ones that are are often the most memorable.

[pek64]

Originally Posted by Rrrrrachel 

Except the examples aren't one to one. Doctors help and even cure way more people than they harm. I can't believe we're even having this conversation.

This is an unsubstantiated remark.

[Marnica]

Originally Posted by Rrrrrachel 

Except the examples aren't one to one. Doctors help and even cure way more people than they harm. I can't believe we're even having this conversation.

I'm not saying that I think conventional medicine doesn't have it's place or that I think that all doctors are bad. I'm one of those people (and others in my family) that prefer alternative medicine and have found incredible success with curing things when we have been told that things couldn't be cured and the answer was a pill or surgery. However I also know in certain circumstances for certain things allopathic medicine is the way to go and I have happily used it when I have needed it - fully informing myself of the risks and benefits beforehand. Its just not my first go to for most problems. I prefer to try other things first. The fact is that conventional medicine does harm alot of people and that should not be brushed aside and is worthy of a conversation IMO. Medical errors are the third leading cause of death in this country and that doesn't even include the number of people harmed by pharmaceutical drugs taken as prescribed. 

[Rrrrrachel]

Originally Posted by Marnica 

I'm not saying that I think conventional medicine doesn't have it's place or that I think that all doctors are bad. I'm one of those people (and others in my family) that prefer alternative medicine and have found incredible success with curing things when we have been told that things couldn't be cured and the answer was a pill or surgery. However I also know in certain circumstances for certain things allopathic medicine is the way to go and I have happily used it when I have needed it - fully informing myself of the risks and benefits beforehand. Its just not my first go to for most problems. I prefer to try other things first. The fact is that conventional medicine does harm alot of people and that should not be brushed aside and is worthy of a conversation IMO. Medical errors are the third leading cause of death in this country and that doesn't even include the number of people harmed by pharmaceutical drugs taken as prescribed. 

I mostly agree with that.

[WildKingdom]

Originally Posted by Rrrrrachel 

I mostly agree with that.

I do too. It's just Chicha's assertion that doctors do nothing but give vaccines and that she doesn't "know how they can live with themselves" that I think is completely over the top.

[Dakotacakes]

Where does the stat that medical errors are the third leading cause of death come from? I don't doubt thehre are too many but I can't find that in the top twenty for causes of death.

[Turquesa]

Originally Posted by Dakotacakes 

Where does the stat that medical errors are the third leading cause of death come from? I don't doubt thehre are too many but I can't find that in the top twenty for causes of death.

The "third leading cause" stat I believe comes from Dr. Mercola's site.

I'm skeptical that it's that high, but as you said, there are too many cases. I'm sorry that I can't C &P right now, but read Dr. Marty Makary's recent article on wsjonline.com, How to Stop Hospitals from Killing Us. He claims that enough Americans die annually of iatrogenic causes to fill 5 jumbo jets. I've queued his new book for library checkout, (I'm too big of a cheapskate for bookstores )

Holy off-topic-ness!

ETA: Again, I'm sorry for the lack of a C&P link, but www.patientsafetyfocus.com, a consumer advocacy group, cites an IOM report listing medical errors as the 8th leading cause of death is the US, higher than car accidents.

ETA: I just checked on Merocla's source, a 2000 article citing an IOM report that lists 106K deaths and includes pharmaceuticals. I'll have to explore this further...in my infinite spare time.
Edited by Turquesa - 12/12/12 at 4:35pm

[CatsCradle]

Originally Posted by pek64 


This is an unsubstantiated remark.

Then I suggest that we interview/poll the 300 million plus people in the U.S. to get a "real" result.  It is the only way for this ridiculous conversation about who and what and when people suffer under "medical" care to end.  

Not directed to you, Pek, but to the spirit of the thread in general:  my mother is alive today because doctors detected her breast cancer early.  She would have been dead 30 years ago if the same thing would have happened then.  My dad, a specialized dentist, makes teeth every day for people who have lost half their faces due to oral cancer (and I have seen pictures).  I'm still alive today because some mental health professionals were able to identify my mental health issues and help me maintain my sanity (as in, I can get up every morning and still function and am not pointing a gun at my head).  This idea that health professionals only care about injecting people with drugs is totally offensive to me.  I'm an attorney and see plenty of personal injury claims filed against medical professionals, but in the big picture, the claims are minute compared to breach of contract claims an other claims involving wrongs that don't involve medical malpractice.  

Before anyone accuses me of being "pro-medicine" (whatever the hell that means), I recognize that that the medical professions are flawed just like any other industry involving human beings are flawed.  I see it every day in my own non-medical practice.  There are people (and I would venture a vast majority) who want to do good and are motivated by the idea of helping people and then there are the slim few who are the subjects of forums like this.  I don't care if I get banned from MDC forever, but I'm going to say it...I'm tired of this bullshit.  

(I have a life outside MDC.  I'd be honored to be banned).  

[Taximom5]

Originally Posted by Turquesa 


The "third leading cause" stat I believe comes from Dr. Mercola's site.
 

Actually, CNN has this:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/09/health/medical-mistakes/index.html

"Medical errors kill more than a quarter million people every year in the United States and injure millions. Add them all up and "you have probably the third leading cause of death" in the country, says Dr. Peter Pronovost, an anesthesiologist and critical care physician at Johns Hopkins Hospital."

[CatsCradle]

Originally Posted by Taximom5 

Actually, CNN has this:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/09/health/medical-mistakes/index.html

"Medical errors kill more than a quarter million people every year in the United States and injure millions. Add them all up and "you have probably the third leading cause of death" in the country, says Dr. Peter Pronovost, an anesthesiologist and critical care physician at Johns Hopkins Hospital."

Interesting that CNN (which is Fox "light" in my opinion") doesn't cite to any interview or paper by Dr. Pronovost (who is a medical doctor at a leading medical institution in the U.S.).  Dr. Pronovost's works focus mostly on infections that occur during hospital visits and surgery and I'd be interested in seeing where and when he made this quote that medical errors are "probably the third leading cause of death in the country".  I'm not a medical malpractice lawyer but I've never heard even a medical malpractice attorney claim this.  I'd like to see more than CNN quotes that lead to a physician's biography with no other substantiating sources.  Just me.

Edited by CatsCradle - 12/12/12 at 6:22pm

[Adaline'sMama]

Originally Posted by CatsCradle 

Then I suggest that we interview/poll the 300 million plus people in the U.S. to get a "real" result.  It is the only way for this ridiculous conversation about who and what and when people suffer under "medical" care to end.  

Not directed to you, Pek, but to the spirit of the thread in general:  my mother is alive today because doctors detected her breast cancer early.  She would have been dead 30 years ago if the same thing would have happened then.  My dad, a specialized dentist, makes teeth every day for people who have lost half their faces due to oral cancer (and I have seen pictures).  I'm still alive today because some mental health professionals were able to identify my mental health issues and help me maintain my sanity (as in, I can get up every morning and still function and am not pointing a gun at my head).  This idea that health professionals only care about injecting people with drugs is totally offensive to me.  I'm an attorney and see plenty of personal injury claims filed against medical professionals, but in the big picture, the claims are minute compared to breach of contract claims an other claims involving wrongs that don't involve medical malpractice.  

Before anyone accuses me of being "pro-medicine" (whatever the hell that means), I recognize that that the medical professions are flawed just like any other industry involving human beings are flawed.  I see it every day in my own non-medical practice.  There are people (and I would venture a vast majority) who want to do good and are motivated by the idea of helping people and then there are the slim few who are the subjects of forums like this.  I don't care if I get banned from MDC forever, but I'm going to say it...I'm tired of this bullshit.  

(I have a life outside MDC.  I'd be honored to be banned).  

Yup. It's like every thread about vaccinations turns into how medical professionals are worthless. It makes this forum impossible to take seriously, and I hate that because I used to come here for real advice on when to vax. 

[CatsCradle]

Sorry, double posted.

[kathymuggle]

Originally Posted by CatsCradle 

(I have a life outside MDC.  I'd be honored to be banned).  

CatsCradle…..your post won't even come close to getting you banned…..

[kathymuggle]

 I get a little tired of people who don't frequently post here coming on and whining about how nasty these subforums are. Forums are only as good as the posters that post in them, and if you think you can bring a fresh or moderate voice - bring it.  Essentially - put up or shut up.  

I don't go onto a forum I never post in (say, homebirth) and start complaining about the nasty tone, or lack of moderateness.  It is none of my business, and if I want to make it my business, then I need to try and engage in a genuine way first and get a bit more active in posting.  

[Taximom5]

Originally Posted by CatsCradle 

Interesting that CNN (which is Fox "light" in my opinion") doesn't cite to any interview or paper by Dr. Pronovost (who is a medical doctor at a leading medical institution in the U.S.).  Dr. Pronovost's works focus mostly on infections that occur during hospital visits and surgery and I'd be interested in seeing where and when he made this quote that medical errors are "probably the third leading cause of death in the country".  I'm not a medical malpractice lawyer but I've never heard even a medical malpractice attorney claim this.  I'd like to see more than CNN quotes that lead to a physician's biography with no other substantiating sources.  Just me.

Try googling; it's not hard to find:

http://www.delcotrial.org/pages/medical_errors_third.html

"Medical error is the 3^rd leading cause of death according to the Journal of the American Medical Association. (JAMA) "Is US Health Really the Best in the World?" July 26, 2000 Vol. 284 No. 4, p. 483-485."

"Harvard professor and medical doctor Lucian Leape found that the studies of medical error were not exaggerated (JAMA July 5, 2000 Vol. 284 p. 95-97) and concluded from his own studies of thousands of hospitals' charts that "there is a substantial amount of injury to patients from medical management and many injuries are the result of substandard care" "Incidence of Adverse Events and Negligence in Hospitalized Patients" The New England Journal of Medicine Vol. 324 Feb. 7, 1991 p. 370-376."

The report as published in JAMA:  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10904513

or

http://www.delcotrial.org/media/pdf/000726_jama.pdf