Ilena on Medicine

[Guest guest]

This was published in March 1997, Essentially You Magazine.Medicine, Inc.I really love doctors. Probably like most nice Jewish girls, I dreamed I¹dmarry one some day. Lately though, it feels much more like the Hippocratic Oath of ³first, dono harm² is closer to the Hypocritical Oath. The mighty AMA, in its 150year reign, would better be called the ³American Doctors Association.² Itshistory reveals that it is really a ³physician driven² trade organizationto further the needs of its members and stop those who are not inagreement with their collective ideals. Thankfully, our early attorneysdidn¹t have the chutzpah to name themselves the ³American JusticeAssociation.² Few may realize that it was the AMA that changed the abortion laws in thiscountry. As its first major campaign, the AMA sought to destroy the vastnetwork of female healers by waging and winning a war against midwives.Ultimately the right for parents to make birth choices for themselves wasmade illegal in 1871 and thus resurrected the dark ages with back alleyabortions and their resultant horrors. This paternalistic attitudecontinued as the AMA opposed doctors even giving any kind of contraceptiveadvice to patients until 1937.Although healthy competition could be thought of as the American way ~ itis anathema to the AMA. Fortunately, its 15 year ³all out war² toeliminate another effective healing profession ended in 1990. At thattime, our Supreme Court let stand the verdict of ³conspiracy among the AMAand its members to destroy the Chiropractic profession.² Since then, anumber of scientific studies have confirmed that Chiropractic is fourtimes as effective ~ at less than one quarter of the cost in thetreatment of persistent back and neck problems ~ than standard medicalmanagement.Somewhere it all went awry. Perhaps the ³medicine for profit² model wasthe wrong choice. Perhaps the incestuous relationship with thePharmaceutical and Chemical Industries the AMA developed before thiscentury took modern medicine in a skewed direction. Certainly the factthat 95% of all the medical journals were owned and controlled by theseindustries has continually influenced the education of our doctors. Thevast Cancer Industry and its research hospitals are run by those whoprofit mightily from chemotherapy. For years, the Tobacco Industry funded the AMA ~ even sponsoring an AMAconvention. AMA board members have been tobacco farm owners. Too recently,cigarette advertising boasted the claims of doctors suggesting thatsmoking would improve one's health. Today, nearly half a million deaths ayear are directly linked to cigarettes, but it was just last year that a³causative link² was made. The billions and billions of dollars to carefor these dying cigarette lovers goes back into the pockets of the AMA,their members, and their friends, the Pharmaceutical companies. Hysterectomies are a $3 billion a year industry although many feel thatthe true benefactors are the physicians who find this procedure relativelyeasy to do and highly profitable. As HMO¹s take over more of the healthdecisions of our country and the health of their bottom line supersedesthe health of the women, we are finding different, less invasive surgicaldecisions are being made. In the silicone scandals, the doctors are clearly the winners. Only oneimplant surgery a week will bring in a quarter of a million dollars ayear, taking them out untold thousands more. Creative amnesia reigns asthe plastic surgeon leaves his patient with ruptured implants andworsening lupus in Room One, to visit Room Two. In all seriousness andwith deep concern for her health, he informs this Implant Virgin he'snever seen a connection between implants and disease, and assures her,it's only the greedy plaintiff's attorneys who want business forthemselves.Doctors are many things ~ healers, technicians, artists, teachers andmuch, much more. Above all, they are human ~ with human strengths . . .and human weaknesses. We need and want their expertise. I join Robbins, author of Reclaiming Our Health, in reminding them, however, thatM.D. does not stand for Medical Deity.Ilena Rosenthal is Director of the Humantics Foundation for Women andauthor of Breast Implants: The Myths, The Facts, The Women. She isavailable to speak on this topic, and created and moderates the internetnewsgroup on this controversial subject. She can be reached at619.270.0680 or ilena@....1997©Ilena Rosenthal