Category: US HEALTH CARE SYSTEM CRITIQUE

If the American medical establishment (the allopaths) were in charge of our computer industry, we’d still be using #2 pencils – and you’d have to have a license to use an eraser.

The situation is that bad. “We the people” are suffering for it.

Opinion by Consumer Advocate Tim Bolen

Allopathic medicine (MD) has failed. It is time to shut it down. As a society, we can’t afford it. In it’s present form, it isn’t worth saving, it is corrupt, and, it is in the way of REAL health care. It’s a facade on “life support.” It’s obviously brain-dead, and it’s time to pull the plug. “The man in the white coat,” is someone to avoid.

It is time to quit pretending that allopaths have something to offer. They will never make you healthy, and they can’t cure you. They don’t have the training, the knowledge, the will, or the tools, to do that. They can’t, and won’t, deal with the major health issues of the new millennium – period.

Their system’s been corrupt for too many years. It can’t be turned around.

Corruption within the ranks of the allopathic medical profession has become so prevalent, and so over-powering, and has taken so many forms, that it’s presence has become accepted – and is considered to be normal. Frankly, the title “MD” has become a symbol of dishonesty, greed, malfeasance, misfeasance, incompetence, negligence, misrepresentation, and falsehood. The allopathic concept itself is fraudulent. They “treat” your condition, rather than “cure” you. They don’t want you to get well. They don’t want you to be “healthy” – they want you to be “medicated.”

The American Public, through their buying habits, have decided they’d rather be healthy than medicated. They have found that there is a BIG difference between those two concepts. And that’s allopathy’s death knell.

ALLOPATHY IS A FALSE CONSTRUCT…

I’m amused, in a dark-humor sort of way, at how the allopaths hold themselves up as “science-based,” or “evidence-based” medicine. What a crock. As though learning how to cut up a frog in the tenth grade had some importance in the scheme of things. A good analogy is that allopaths spend so much time studying the hair mites on a beetle in the bark of a tree, that they have long forgotten, or can’t even come back up to the point where the statement “They can’t see the forest for the trees,” is relevant. They can’t even see the trees. In fact, they probably can’t even see the beetle. They definitely can’t see you…

What science? What evidence? Allopathy, in reality, is ONLY two things – drugs and surgery – neither of which, in the scheme of things, over time, has been shown to be AT ALL effective. I have good reason to say “Every allopathic claim has failed the test – EVERY ONE.” Allopathy is a sham and a scam – period. NOTHING they do is right, and too much of it is DEAD WRONG. They start, and finish, at the wrong place.

Allopathy is science based? No, it’s not… Show me the double-blind studies that prove that open-heart surgery, or bypass operations, work. Justify those barbaric hysterectomies. Defend those idiots that cut out the wrong organ, or cut off the wrong leg – and keep their licenses AND get paid for their work. What’s evidence-based about rampant off-label use of dangerous prescription drugs? What’s evidence-based about prescribing MORE THAN ONE DANGEROUS DRUG, at the same time, to the same patient? Show me the drug trials for that. Justify the sheer health horror a patient goes through with those UNPROVEN combinations chemically ripping body systems to shreds.

Better yet – show me the war on cancer (or AIDS) has some validity. Chemo, radiation, and surgery are crap – and everyone knows it. Disagree? Show me the studies. SHOW ME THE RESULTS. Surgery for prostate cancer? Would that surgeon like that done to him?

And then there are all those statistics, printed in the New England Journal of Medicine, about allopaths screwing up and killing people… And, boy do they – by the truckload. State Medical Boards, assigned, by us, to deal with these issues – DO NOT – they do the opposite – they whitewash the problems, protecting “standard-of-care” allopaths. Allopathic hospitals, reports show, are a MAJOR SOURCE of disease. Some people believe that you’d be better off being operated on in your own cesspool, rather than a hospital. At least the microbes you’d come in contact with would be familiar.

The TELLING FACT of allopathy is the cost, for them, of malpactice insurance. Insurance rates, the world over, are based upon the assessment of risk. There are no higher rates for insurance than allopaths. Why? Juries are finding allopaths, generally, are screw-ups – uncaring bumblers, butchers, and scoff-laws. Juries find for Plaintiffs – with reasonable, rational cash awards. Allopathy, in it’s sheer, officially uncaring position, refuses to deal with this issue correctly – whining about insurance rates, and attempting, instead of cleaning up it’s own act, to limit patient awards for their negligence.

THERE ARE BETTER ANSWERS THAN ALLOPATHY…

ALL of the other health disciplines operating in North America (Homeopaths, Naturopaths, Osteopaths, Chiropractic, etc.), as we well know, are far better able to deal with the health issues of the new millennium than Allopaths. The Homeopaths, Naturopaths, etc., are better educated, are a better class of people (they are “healers” not “medicators”), and actually care about their patients. They’ve got more tools to use, and they understand the problems better. And, they won’t kill you…

Allopaths, on the other hand, are restricted to prescribing the latest magic bullet, the one the drug salesman told them to PUSH last week. In this year of 2002, this is ALL allopathy is. They’ve gone the way of gold-handled, diamond encrusted, buggy whips.

Don’t tell me that the medical schools, like Stanford, and Columbia, are teaching new methods – and that their students are demanding to be educated in “Alternative Medicine.” So what? It’s not a valid statement. It doesn’t matter one bit who they teach what. For, once those students graduate, they become part of the REAL allopathic world. Their new employer makes it clear that, “that nonsense” they learned in medical school “will not be tolerated here. Go have lunch with the drug salesman.”

And, if that doesn’t do it, then the new MD will get visited by a Medical Board Investigator, who during the course of the “interview,” will casually pull back the coat to let the new MD see the gun in the holster – a hard shove into the reality of allopathy. There is only one regimen accepted in the allopathic world. Doubt what I say here? Read the policy statements on the www.fsmb.org website. That’s the reality of allopathic policy.

There is a whole world of “leading-edge”, or “Alternative Medicine MDs” (so-called “quacks”) out there in America. They have tried to break loose from the paradigm – and put some sense into allopathy. But frankly, they are not winning. They are ALL under attack from the status quo. The assault against them is a hundred times more vicious than you could believe. These “quack” MDs are the ONLY ONES worth saving. In fact, they are some of the finest people I’ve ever met in the world. These MDs, and only these, need to be preserved.

To ad insult to injury, we the people, get bombarded with the likes of an organization calling itself the “quackbusters,” whose chief propagandist, sleazy delicensed MD Stephen Barrett of www.quackwatch.com, makes a smirky living criticizing healers competing with allopaths for health dollars. Barrett, who apparently couldn’t make it as a Psychiatrist (he never became board certified) turned in his MD license (for unknown reasons) to the State of Pennsylvania in 1993. He is listed now, by Pennsylvania, as “Not in good standing…” And, Barrett’s successor, Bobbie Baratz, the president of the self-styled National Council Against Health Fraud, and heir to the quackbuster throne, is even more scummy. This guy “makes it up as he goes along.” Baratz’s fake resume is classic. His claims at expertise are literally fantastic. He also, travels around testifying to things he knows little, or nothing, about, for money.

The term “quack” seems to be one used by allopaths to describe anyone who operates outside of the rigidly controlled drug/surgery “standard-of-care” paradigm. Within the allopathic world, ANYONE who tries something new for a patient, or operates outside of the rigid allopathic paradigm, is classified as a “quack.” Unless, of course, they’re are recommending the latest magic bullet – the one this week’s drug salesman told them to PUSH.

In other words, the allopaths KNOW they nothing to offer, and don’t want anyone else to offer REAL health solutions.

OUR EFFORTS, SO FAR…

As a society we’ve made several attempts to reverse the perversion. At best, our efforts have been stop-gap. The process that showed the best hope – the interjection of the HMO concept – is only holding the line. All we we’ve been able to do, so far, is to take the “medical decisions” out of the hands of the MD greed-monsters, and put them into the hands of normal, common-sense, people. As a society, we need to have medical decisions made, based upon expected results, not on an MD’s desire to upgrade his twin-engine Bonanza to a Lear jet.

Another effort, the passage of punitive legislation, like Kennedy-Kasselbaum (federal) has only helped stem the tide of horror. You don’t stop a greed-monster by just putting up a few barriers. When a vampire wants to drink blood, putting bars on your windows just sends them to your neighbor’s house. Allopathy has a voracious appetite.

Perhaps the most productive effort so-far, is the US Justice Department’s Health Fraud Task Force initiated by Janet Reno, and carried on by the Bush Administration. It is VERY effective; it identifies the vampires, makes an example out of them for other sleazy operators, and exacts severe penalties, plus pay-backs, of our money. In a joint project with AARP, Justice teaches “seniors” how to read their Medicare billing statements to find “false billings,” and turn in their health provider for prosecution. And, none too soon.

The Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) has come down hard on dishonest allopaths. They’ve put in place a “spot review” process of billings sent to Medicare, and they now have “flags” on the files of frequent violators. There are a lot of flags…

Insurance companies now have tools to prosecute false billings – and they use them.

WHAT’S NEXT?

What do we do next? The NUMBER ONE answer is OPEN recognition of the problem. It is time to face reality. We’ve got to get rid of the lie known as “MD.” We must educate the public – including our legislators and our news media about the truth.

And what’s the truth? Allopathy is all smoke and mirrors. The truth is that “those two guys in the white coats are not Marcus Welby, and Ben Casey.” That’s not what allopathy is – and it never was.

Allopathy is Stephen Barrett, and Bobbie Baratz. Stephen Barrett, and Bobbie Baratz, are allopathy. And, there’s no more to it then that.

Allopathy, celebrating a meager 100 years on our planet, has had it’s time. It has failed us miserably. The only thing holding it up is the status quo. Americans don’t consciously spend their money on it. Only the bureaucracy of Medicare and Insurance pays for it. And, it’s time to put an end to that. We need to operate on results – not false promise.

Allopathy is on “life support.” It’s obviously brain-dead. It’s time to pull the plug.

Tim Bolen