Who Cares About You . . . Really ?
If you do a little digging, it is not difficult to find out that science is far ahead of mainstream medical practice. I am not referring to surgery here, just medicine. Mainstream medicine is dominated by billion dollar drug companies and often outdated protocols. Outdated because science has shown them to be flawed, sometimes even harmful. But the industry of medicine (the manufacture, sale, and prescribing of drugs) is like a very big ship, and it can take a long, slow, time to turn it around.
Yes, the drug companies are in the health business, but “health” is an adjective here. They are in BUSINESS. And their PRIMARY GOAL is to MAKE MONEY for their shareholders. That is their “stated purpose”. That is not a bad thing if you are a financial investor. But if you are investing your health with them, you should stay reminded of their priorities.
Or, do you believe the drug industry is equally dedicated to your health ?
Remember the recent scandals/cover-ups of various drugs that these companies discovered were harming, sometimes killing, people !
Did they rush to make it known so fewer people would be harmed/killed ?
Or did they try to hide the facts to keep the cash registers going ?
Some people, people with families like yours, are now statistics as a result of this.
Vioxx and Bextra are just two of the drugs that were recently removed from the market. It has been reported that Vioxx alone is responsible for over 27,000 deaths. Let that sink in . . . that is more than TWENTY SEVEN THOUSAND PEOPLE, each with a family, that is no longer here with us !
This is the the result of only one drug that had been "proven safe" for your use.
Right now, drug companies still put mercury (as Thimerosal) in some vaccines in the states where the law does not prohibit it. This is true even while overwhelming evidence points to the harm it causes. That is why some states recently began to prohibit the inclusion of mercury.
So why do these drug companies still use mercury ? Because it is not illegal in those states, and it is profitable.
And . . . . . your physician, if he is in one of these states, will give your child that vaccination with mercury in it, knowing there is a reasonable chance it will be harmful to your child, yet he will inject it anyway.
Why ?
Because that is the current protocol in his state. It is not only legal for him to inject it into your child in that state, but it is considered the “right” protocol, therefore what he is SUPPOSED to do. Not until the protocol changes, or the law changes in that state will his procedure change. Remember, it can take a long, slow time for change, AND there is a lot of profit in vaccinations the way they are.
Keep in mind, your physician does not decide protocol. That is decided for him. And, unless he is a rare specimen, or not involved with insurance companies, he is most likely following protocol.
That is why so many physicians quit practicing in the 1980s, when insurance began to rule them. This was the time of the major overhaul of the health-insurance-industry. From then on, the doctor (working with insurance companies) was no longer allowed to decide what was best for his patients. This was the beginning of strict insurance guidelines and pre-approvals, etc. The doctors (most of them) that stayed with the insurance complanies, went to the “dark side”, where they must follow guidelines and protocols set up by insurance companies and bureaucrats, neither-of-which are necessarily physicians, nor is there much reason for them to keep up with new studies about what they are setting in stone.
And for the most part, the insurance-company-bureaucrats' job is such that they need to be more concerned with the bottom line (costs), than with optimizing what is best for your health.
This system is what allows a hospital to charge you $30 for one aspirin and get paid for it by your insurance company.
These billion dollar insurance companies are dedicated to becoming even bigger billion dollar companies. They are dedicated to dollars.
Almost by definition, their purpose must exclude any treatment that they can not obtain a patent on, or does not have a sufficient profit-margin potential.
They must neglect preventive medicine, and science and treatment for optimal health and longevity, because insurance will not cover these therapies.
That is the world of Third Party Payers. It’s OK if you just need something basic, like blood pressure medication or an antibiotic for an infection. But if you have a child who is Autistic or has Cerebral Palsy; or if a loved one develops Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s or Multiple Sclerosis; or has a Stroke; it may not be long before you discover that there is a lot that is NOT-KNOWN out there, and the protocols can be discouraging, and oftentimes damaging.
So . . . . you tell me ? Who really cares about YOUR health ?
Is it the drug companies ?
Is it your insurance company ?
Is it even your doctor ?
Even if you are fortunate enough to have a primary doctor who really does care, he is trained to think in the box: "If I don't know about it, if Im not using it or recommending it, if insurance doesn't cover it . . . it can't really work ".
And after all, it isn't in "the protocol" he was taught.
So I will suggest that who ultimately MUST really care the most about your health . . . is you yourself, and your family.
That is why I encourage patients to learn in depth about their condition, investigate and learn about various treatments (and harmful side-effects), as well as “alternative” treatments that have been shown to be helpful.
Reading studies and scientific papers can seem daunting, but this can be easily managed by scrolling down to the “Results” and “Conclusion” sections.
Do NOT use an “alternative” treatment just because it is alternative. There is a lot of junk out there: Junk treatments, and junk science. But there are also alternative treatments that are powerfully effective.
As time goes on, some of these will become “mainstream”, like Acupuncture. I was practicing acupuncture in the late 1970s, when it was pooh-poohed by the mainstream medical community. Now it is largely embraced.
But not all patients have 20 or 30 years to wait for “the practice of medicine” to catch up to science. You must decide if you want to wait.
Now, my practice revolves around Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy because, generally speaking, HBOT produces overwhelmingly impressive results for conditions that mostly do not have very encouraging outcomes using insurance guidelines for treatment. Hyperbaric oxygen will oftentimes help patients who are left with little reason to expect further improvement.
So, how long will it take for the medical community to incorporate hyperbaric oxygen’s benefits ?
I don’t know, but I’m not waiting. And neither are more and more patients.
There is a growing movement among health-care-providers AND patients, responding to the short-comings of mainstream medicine.
These are patients that realize it is their body, and it is the only one they will get. And they want to be more involved in the decisions and treatments that will affect and determine the quality of the rest of their lives. They are not willing to have someone at their insurance company, who has never examined them, set the guidelines for what their doctor can and can not do to help them.
If you, or a loved one, have a misfortune, and the quality of your life is compromised by a serious health condition, I urge you to get involved with your health and that of your loved ones.
Take care of yourself. Literally ! Use the insurance system and its doctors to the degree that they can be helpful to you, but do not depend on them for your optimal health. Insurance doesn’t cover that !
PS: And one more thing . . . . . consider this: Mortality rate is often used as a barometer of the health of a nation. This is the number of babies born dead (does not include abortions) per one-thousand population.
The 2006 estimates place the United States 40th among 226 countries.
I find this statistic shocking, as I think most of us Americans would.
Many of us take it for granted that we have the best health care, or one of the best health cares, in the world. We just assume so, and feel proud of it.
But the facts tell us otherwise.
And this does not even begin to consider quality of life issues that plague us as a nation, and remain on-the-rise.
Increases in Cancer, Heart Disease, Atherosclerosis, Osteoporosis, Arthritis, Diabetes, Obesity, Alzheimer’s, Autism, Inflammatory Bowel Disease, etc.
The point is, do not assume that because this is the United States, if you follow the main-stream, you will receive the best, most comprehensive treatments available to help you. REMEMBER, your insurance guidelines and doctor’s protocol have pre-determined what your treatment will be for your condition ! REMEMBER to get involved and search for the best care for yourself !