Medical Industrial Complex

let us not forget that body wants to and often does heal itself.  To me, alternative medicine is MORE profit seeking in that any old anybody (not board certified for instance) can claim to be an expert.  Of course there are all those who offer their services and products for free... altrustic I guess. 

I really do like a holistic approach in that the practitioner really does seem to pay attention to the patient and his/her needs and questions.  Personally, I like the comfort of research, regulation and the protocol that professional medicine demands of it's practitioners.  Perhaps expensive, but those with insurance are protected and government provides payments in the form of medicaid and medicare.

Have you ever walked down the Whole Foods 'medicine' aisle... talk about confusing, expensive, and expensive..  a half an ounce of ginseng root extract.  ... well I don't remember the price but it was into the hundreds.

Any way I assure you there is plenty of profit in the alternative sections.. and who knows what you are getting? 30 bucks here, 40 bucks there. 

There has always been a dislike of authority and education.... just the way it is I guess.  I hope my kids go to college tho.

btw, my onc. at least is very supportive of holistic ways.  she has referred me to a naturalist (Which I can't afford)... but I can afford to read the literature she posts and is available in her office).

Apple, on her to Whole Foods now. .. I admit, I mostly buy dried things like grains, nuts, snacks and veggies.

Hear, hear apple!  Right on the money!  While pharma is Big business, so is Big Alternative.  And I am a fan of alternative!  I'm doing mistletoe at $200/month for the next year!  Those supplements ain't cheap, either!  And my chiropractor?  Please!  He's awesome, but that dude charges me the student rate ('cause he is nice) of $45/adjustment.  And he wants me to come twice a week!  Alternative meds are costing me a bundle, which is fine because I really see the value.  But dont' go saying that these guys aren't making money.  Trust me.  Everyone is making money.

I was actually taking Zelnorm for my gastroparesis when it was pulled, because of the link to deaths.  I had no problem with it, and I know there were many desperate people looking to get it from abroad after it was pulled. However, I agree that this kind of oversight is necessary.  It really becomes a difficult balancing act.  When black box warnings were put on SSRIs because of suicides (because for some people with severe depression, getting a bit better enables them to carry out plans they were previously too dysfunctional to pull off) a lot of people stopped taking them, which meant a lot of untreated depression, and possibly more suicides as a result.

This is a great thread...the insults seemed to have stopped and people are posting interesting things- opposing, but not hateful.

my son with autism talks better and has a better mood all day if he eats one big orange every morning. I do not know what it is, the folic acid? the vitamin C? or just his physiology- doc thinks I am nuts...but the empirical evidence is there for me. Does this mean everyone with autism will benefit in the same way? Nope. He is not lactose intolerant but if I give him milk after about three days of it he will start acting pyschotic. Stomach acid or lack of necessary proteins or something spurs the brain which is connected to our guts. Again no medical facts to back it up (although there is a lot of research along these lines). I guess my point is many things contribute or harm us as individuals. Some are safer than others to play with.

I do indeed recoil when I read that living healthy will prevent cancer. I have met far too many women (see Apple's bio) that were poster girls for living right and were struck down far too hard by BC. Does that mean one should not eat right and take care of themselves? Of course not. Hell, it is a good thing to clean up one's health in any way we can. But it is shady to insinuate that it would have prevented BC or will forestall recurrence. We just do not know. Back to that whole pesky DNA thing.

My brother contracted cancer of the thymus gland when he was 12. So stumped the medical community researchers flew in to study him. Had all the treatments available in 1964 which were brutal to be sure. He died 9 months after diagnosis. Professional suppositions abounded. The doctors were as devasted as we were. My mom said it was because he was kicked in the chest by a deer at a petting zoo the year before spurring something to *go wrong in there*. The kick was right above the thymus gland. I think her explanation is as valid as any.I learned a lot back then. Like white hot anger when my helpful aunt told my mom at his funeral that he would have lived if she would have only fed him more spinach. But of course the spinach did not save my aunt, a woman who I don't believe let much processed food ever pass through her lips, as my spinach-lacking mom tended her in the final months when my aunt was passing from the end stages of pancreatic cancer 30 years later.

What is the point in all of this? There is none really beyond that there is a long way to go in treatment. Nobody's ideas are completely wrong but I am not thinking that any are completely right.

I have always thought of the "medical industrial complex" as encompassing both conventional and alternative medicine. There is no daylight where economics are concerned - since the term "industrial complex" is usually designed to refer to economic power. A lot of medicine is not either/or. Complementary medicine has enjoyed growing acceptance in the West for decades now. In fact, it is all the rage. And what constitutes alternative medicine has changed over time and perspective. 

I prefer the terms "evidence-based" versus "not evidence-based" when making a distinction between treatments to trust and treatments to be wary of - but some so-called conventional treatments for cancer warrant skepticism.

As for the sellers, whether it is big pharma or herba, they are both huge economies with a mixture of good and bad apples. Doctors, meanwhile, are sometimes part of those complexes and sometimes caught between the seller (the manufacturing company) and the buyer (the patient).

Medicine has a great deal to answer for, as do all of the supporting industries, including the "industry" of government lobbyists and pliant policymakers. This applies to BOTH pharma and herba. But every day, we thank God for modern medicine, if not to cure our cancer then at least to provide antibiotics, surgery and other medications.

Good to point out Susie. I should have added that. Of course, in cancer we are often prescribed so many treatments that people end up doing all three. They will have surgery, Vitamin D3 And go for DIM instead of Tamoxifen. But the distinction needs to be remembered.

Priceless Susan !



Let,s take the prunes and chamomile tea out

It was Rodney King who said this during the LA riots.  Denny was in a coma.  Wow, so long ago.

Patzee - I still wish (for your sake and health) you would get that sorted. If the pathology says they weren't clean - they weren't. My cousin had a lumpectomy and they went back to get clean margins and she still had a recurrence in the same place some time later - probably because they still missed some. The only way to kill it is to remove it!!!

(((((HUGS)))))

Sue

@patzee: - a pathologist knows for sure if your margins were dirty. so does the surgeon. this is not reading tea leaves, or dream interpretation. if you're refusing treatment, okay, it's your life. just own your decision instead of acting as if the clinicians who are doing their job don't know how.

I jumped down to the part about curcumin in the article that you linked.  Even the author reports survival benefits with the use of chemo.

Recent research  by  the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston showed that curcumin prevented  the spread of breast cancer to the lungs in mice inoculated with human breast cancer cells. The mice were divided into four groups: one received no treatment, one got curcumin alone, one was given the cancer drug Taxol and the fourth group was given curcumin plus Taxol. Cancer spread to the lungs among half the mice in the curcumin-only group and 22 percent of those that received that combination of both curcumin and Taxol.  The groups receiving no curcumin  fared far worse: among the mice that received Taxol alone 75 percent developed lung tumors; and the cancer spread to the lungs among 95 percent of the mice who were given no treatment. "  

and one more time, with feeling: you had surgery. guess what? that is called "conventional". or "Western". you're entitled to your opinion, but no more charades.

surgeon + scalpel = conventional.

I have never been healthier since rebuilding my body after chemo.  I considered it my detoxifying agent.  It got all the crap out of me so I could start over...without cancer.  Hopefully, what I am doing to help my body now will keep the bc beast away.

definitely, kira - and i was grateful for it. God forbid the worst happens, I'll always know I did the best treatment I could. Two oncs concurred on the protocols.

and patzee, watch yourself with your posts. i reported the one in which you noted my nodes, because it's lowbrow. i'll report every single one of yours directed at me if you keep it up.