Dr Phil Bate Orthomolecular Pioneer

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What's Wrong With the Health Industry and Big Pharma?

• We spend over $4000 per capita per year and yet we rank 32nd (and getting worse yearly) in overall health statistics - way behind every country with socialized medicine.  Canada spends $2300 per capita, the UK spends only $1400, and Germany spends $2400. We spend more than all of these combined - and yet we have worse health statistics!!

  Even in Russia, and the former Soviet countries, if you're sick you can see a doctor free.   And that was atrue even when the Russian economy was broke and still recovering from the Cold War.  (Another admirable fact about Russia - if you qualify you can go FREE all the way to a PhD or MD degree).  We are losing brain power and they're gaining it.  Why do we pay so much and get so little?   How can the US be so far behind this nearly bankrupt country?   When did the AMA and drug companies propaganda make "socialized medicine" a bad phrase?

• The "basic" Health culture in the US is drug oriented.  The drug manufacturers (AKA Big Pharma) are profit oriented (as are too many MD's, PhD's, DO's, and DC's.)  Drugs are an easy "fix", resulting in fast money with little effort.  When was the last time that the prices for drugs came down?  Take a look at company statistics for the last 5 years for any (and all) drug manufacturers.  Research indeed!  They're raping the US public with prices double what they sell to other countries. (Check out prices in Canada, Mexico, or any Caribbean country).  Why are they spending so much of that income on advertising instead of what they keep saying "it's going to research".  Ask to see their books, and you'll probably find that only a small percentage is actually going to real research, and rest is profit!

• On average, third-year medical students receive one gift or attend one "free" activity sponsored by a drug maker every single week.  Is this "research" or is it more accurately called "bribing future MD's?"

  Students claim they aren't swayed by such marketing to look more favorably on companies' products, but studies indicate that the programs and gifts do influence what drugs they prescribe upon becoming doctors.

  Over 80 Percent Thought They Were Entitled to Gifts

  For a recent study, anonymous questionnaires were sent to over 1,000 third-year medical students at eight different schools.

  • Over 93 percent of the students were asked or required by a physician to attend at least one drug-company-sponsored lunch.

  • Nearly 70 percent of the students believed gifts would not influence their practices.

  • Close to 58 percent thought gifts would not affect colleagues' practices.

  • There was a tendency for students to feel their peers were more likely to be influenced than they were.

  • Over 80 percent of the students believed they were entitled to gifts.

  • Most students didn't know whether or not their schools had a policy governing the acceptance of drug company gifts

  The researchers conducting the study said that drug company influence will make students more likely to prescribe (and mis-prescribe) marketed products, and that students need to be educated about how to handle promotional saturation.

  This study was part of a themed issue of the Journal of the American Journal of the American Medical Association September 2005; 294:1034-1042 Forbes September 6, 2005

  In most other countries, alternate therapies (including nutrition) are well known and practiced.   In Germany and other European "enlightened" countries, Homeopathy is practiced along with Allopathy (drugs).  Drug companies have to compete there, and prices are much lower generally.

  Health "Insurance" is controlled by Insurance companies - NOT BY HEALTH EXPERTS.  This means they have a vested interest in NOT PAYING for the "best" solutions".  In addition, at least, one third of the cost of Health Insurance is devoted to paperwork and profits of the Insurance industry that has nothing to do with real health.  (It helps to have good lobbyists and to donate to campaign funds obviously.)  Insurance companies are among the richest corporations in the US, and growing richer on our poor health system.

  The FDA, set up initially to "protect" we, the public, has degenerated into a protection of the drug manufacturers instead.  Take a look at the FDA generated RDA (Recommeded Daily Allowance) for "health".  Every person who has even looked seriously at nutrition knows that these are ridiculous.  They were originally done by cereal manufacturers (with a vested interest) and were designed only to prevent the dangerous malnutrition "diseases".  This is not "good health" in any thinking persons mind.

  Of course, there are other factors in our culture that contribute to our "worsening" health overall.  Fast food that has calories, but little nutrition, or even malnutrition.   Look at the obesity problem with our children today.  The poorest children are sometimes the best nourished simply because the poor can't afford "fast food", but must do their own cooking.  Add the overabundance of sugar (empty calories) to processed food to make it more tempting, and we have a recipe for obesity and more sickness (which we now have).

  When will we ever get Universal Health? When we take away the very generous health plans of our "leaders".  The Congress, the Senate and the Administration all get a plan that is much much better than that of any except some corporation "leaders".  Why should they care about the rest of us?  They've got theirs.

  What do the 40-50 million "uninsured" people do? They can't even afford prevention, or going to the doctor for "minor things", so until those become "major things" and usually much more expensive to fix, they do nothing.  At that point, they go to an Emergency Room.  (Did you know that no Emergency Room can turn away anyone for not having enough money?)  Now, their "treatment" may cost much more than if they'd been able to see a doctor earlier.  The end result?  We all (those who pay their fair share of taxes) end up paying even more for these "uninsured" persons in the long run.  Let's not even go into the "fair share" where the richest pay the least.

  Let's talk about drugs and how they're tested.  A "blind" study is one where the patient doesn't know if he/she is getting a drug being tested, or a placebo, but the researcher does.  (For those who aren't familiar with placebos, they are harmless pills made from sugar/starch usually.)

  Double Blind studies are those where neither the researcher nor the patient knows which the patient is getting.  Why use a double blind study?  Why not just a blind study?  Surprisingly, it was found that using just a blind study, results were undependable, so the double blind study is now used almost universally.

  This double blind technique sounds like a great idea, very logical, and if done correctly, the results "should" accurately show the effectiveness of the drug being tested against the placebo.

  However, since about one-third of all prescriptions drugs aren't really effective against what they are prescribed for, something is wrong somewhere.  Could it be the double blind isn't really "blind"?

  My doctoral dissertation was done on the unconscious interaction between a hypnotist and his subjects.   I postulated two conditions that have both been well proven over many years:

  1. The subject in hypnosis has an almost overwhelming desire to please the hypnotist.  This desire to please is somewhat individual, but almost universal.  (In a very few cases where the subject, for whatever reason, dislikes the hypnotist, the opposite might occur.)

  2. There is an unconscious (AKA subconscious) communication between subject and hypnotist, i.e. the subject "knows" what the hypnotist "wants" the experiment outcome to be, although the subject doesn't know this consciously.

  In "The Mind of Man", Dr J. B. Rhine of Duke University proved way back in the 1930's that unconscious telepathy existed.   (The actual math showed that there was 1 chance in 10 to the 30th power that it didn't.  Scientifically, a "theory" is generally accepted as a "fact" if the odds are LESS than 1 chance in 10 to the 6th power!)

  I worked with Dr. Rhine by post and phone for over a year until I actually spent an evening with he and his wife in 1954.  We had had a running long distance "argument" for two years. I had found that hypnotized subjects had an increase in psychic power, and in some cases, dramatically increased.  His experiments, however, showed that hypnosis had no effect on ESP ablity.   How can this be?  When we actually met, our discussion was spirited indeed.  I just couldn't accept his findings, and he couldn't accept mine.  We soon got onto other subjects and it was a very pleasant evening.

  I thought about this "difference" for several years, off and on, as we humans do, and one day, years later, I suddenly realized that if the hypnotist were part of the experiment, the results would be exactly what the hypnotist wanted them to be.  Dr Rhine had died by then, and for that I was sorry, as it explained BOTH our results, and both of us should have seen it when we met.  (Just shows that "scientists" and "researchers" are human, and can be just as "blind" as everyone else.)   I had wanted hypnosis to show increase in psychic powers, and I got that result. He had not wanted that result, and he got what he wanted.

  So, given the two postulates above, the results of any test MUST be skewed depending on what the researcher "wants" to prove.  This applies whether the scientist "knows" consciously what they are trying to prove or not.  All scientists pride themselves on being "objective", but none of us really can be, and particularly, we can't be in our subconscious.

  Going to the vast amount of research and "scientific" testing on hypnosis, I found dozens of hypnotic experiments that were directly contradictory.   Scientist A did test A and got result A.  Scientist B did test A, and got result B.   Exactly what would be expected given the two postulates.  It was a surprisingly simple doctoral dissertion to write for e.

  This also explains the failure of the "blind" study, and the skewed results.  But, does this mean that the "double blind" study is accurate?  Not so.

  Let's add one more postulate to the the equation.  INDIVIDUALITY.  Everybody is different, and our psychic ability is also different, or perhaps, the "communication" between unconscious and conscious is different.  In either event, some persons will unconsciously "know" whether they are getting the actual drug or the placebo.  Some others won't "know" this, BUT they still have that unconscious "desire to please", and thus even the placebo will have some effectiveness on the particular symptom/disease being researched.

  In every study I've ever seen, the results are shown in percentages.  Take any double blind study, and you will notice something strange.  Even the subjects given the placebo have a percentage that "improved".  So, the placebo effect has even improved the condition of those people exactly as the previous paragraph predicted!

  Now, the question is:   How many of the "improvements" shown for the actual drug are solely from this "desire to please", and how many are from both this desire AND the subconscious "knowledge" that the actual drug is being given.  This is where the individuality of each person comes into play.

  Scientists and doctors tend to forget this "individuality" of each person.  Doctors, in particular, tend to prescribe for the volume of the patient, i.e. their height and weight measurements.  This is the crudest of all measurements, as each person absorbs each chemical involved differently, and each person responds to each of these chemicals slightly or radically differently, depending on individuality.

  This is a controversial subject, and if we question the double blind study, we take away drug testing for effectiveness.  But, should we "blindly" accept it?  (Pun intended.)  I emphatically say NO.  Unless the results are very clearly positive - the percentages are overwhelming - such drugs should be tested on a huge number of actual patients, and careful studies made of the results.  If this were done today, we would have less drug deaths.  This is where money spent on research would be useful!

  Dr Abram Hoffer, the "father" of orthomolecular medicine in effect, believes that holding back medications that may help is wrong, and I have to agree.  In other words, don't use placebos, but just give the chemical, and monitor the results carefully.  Particularly, when the "medications" are actually megavitamins or similar "chemicals" that are clearly not dangerous.  Instead, test by use on hundreds, or thousands of actual patients, and keep records of how they worked.  That's what he and Dr. Osmond did.

  The APA, the AMA, and other so-called "scientific" organizations did not accept their findings because it was not a "double-blind" study.  Is that ridiculous?  All too many such "studies" are discounted as anecdotal for the same reason.  But, if a theory works in more than a few cases, it should be accepted at least as a working theory, and investigated further.

  Think about the effects of placebos.  If a placebo can have the same effect as a drug in many persons, why take the drug?  Can we somehow harness this placebo effect?  The answer is a limited YES!  Using hypnosis we can actually cure many symptoms and diseases (well, it's ego gratifying to say "I cured this person", but in reality, the person cured himself with maybe some help from the physician).  It's been done in thousands of medical reports all over the world for well over 200 years in the literature, and for thousands of years in folklore.  Self hypnosis can help many persons.  The key is positive visualization or positive sayings - one originated by a Dr Coue over 200 years ago is still effective. "In every day, I am getting better in every way."

  

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