The Medical Corner
Dr. Jean Eckerly, 68

As promised during our workshop at the OLOC Gathering in North Carolina, I will give a brief summary of the content and furnish you with some references. We attempted to look at our health care (better termed "disease care") system from a historical and political perspective.

For an in depth feminist analysis, I strongly recommend the book For Her Own Good - 150 Years of the Experts’ Advice to Women by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deidre English. This was first published in 1978 and was updated in 2005 with the subtitle “two centuries of the experts’ advice to women.” I am looking forward to reading the update. However, the first edition, along with two monographs, Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A History of Women Healers, and Complaints and Disorders: The Sexual Politics of Sickness (by the same authors), launched me into my career as a maverick physician (commonly referred to by the so-called “traditional” MDs as quack).

Even a limited perusal of the origins of “modern” medicine will quickly reveal that it is anything but traditional. What is traditional is healing. What we have with our system is merchandising. This is not to say that many MDs are not well-meaning and dedicated; it is to say that the system trains us to use methods that are self defeating. We are not educated to understand and correct abnormalities that occur in human physiology, we are trained to employ methods that will artificially alter physiologic parameters.

Simply put, we use drugs to alter laboratory measurements and we define “health” as having “normal” laboratory data. In fact, we can redefine the normal ranges of these parameters, or introduce new parameters that allow us to define more people as “ill” or certainly “at risk.” I have been writing these articles for 6 years and I continue to feel overwhelmed by the amount and intensity of the propaganda that comes from the medical establishment.

On the other hand, very few MDs are involved in environmental issues which, to my mind, are the basic cause of the physiologic abnormalities that occur. We are talking about air, water, food, and certainly “medicines.”

At any rate, here are some references for your winter reading:

Websites that support the status quo:

www.firstwordplus.com a website for the pharmaceutical industry www.open.imshealth.com a website for medical corporations (offers a free newsletter)

www.quackwatch.com a website that allegedly steers you away from quackery

Websites that seek truth in medicine:

www.campaignforthruth.com has a number of links to other sites

www.citizen.org an organization is active in challenging the government www.credence.org simply stating facts in “controversial situations”

www.paradigm-changes.com looking for better answers

www.redflagsdaily.org covers health news with critique

www.statinalert.org the truth about cholesterol lowering drugs

www.thincs.org world class scientists tell the truth about heart disease

www.worstpills.org the truth about the safety of specific drugs

www.publiccampaign.org has a white paper on health care paybacks (how the white house and congress are neglecting our health care because of their corporate contributors)

Books:

Angell MD, M. The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us And What To Do About It. The Random House, New York, 2004.

Bartlett, D.L., Steele, J.B. Critical Condition: How Health Care In America Became Big Business And Bad Medicine. Doubleday 2004.

Carter MD, J. Racketeering In Medicine; The Suppression Of Alternatives. Hampton Roads, 1992.

Grieder, K. The Big Fix: How The Pharmaceutical Industry Rips Off American Consumers. Public Affairs, 2003.

Hilts, P.J. Protecting America’s Health: The FdA, Business And One Hundred Years Of Regulation. Alfred A. Knopf, 2003.

Kassirer MD, J.P. On The Take: How Medicine’s Complicity With Big Business Can Endanger Your Health. Oxford University Press, 2005.

Krimsky, S. Science In The Private Interest: Has The Lure Of Profits Corrupted Biomedical Research? Rowman & Littlefield, 2004.

Moynihan, R., Cassels, A. Selling Sickness: How The World’s Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies Are Turning Us All Into Patients. Nation Books, 2005.

Strand MD, R.D. Death By Prescription: The Shocking Truth Behind An Overmedicated Nation. Thomas Nelson, 2003.

Szasz MD, T. The Theology Of Medicine: The Political-philosophical Foundations Of Medical Ethics. Syracuse University Press, 1988.

Washburn, J. University Inc.: The Corporate Corruption Of Higher Education. Basic Books, 2005.

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