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Predicting The Future of Medicine by Jeffrey Dach MD
As a kid growing up in Chicago, I hung out in the public library reading the science fiction novels of Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and Robert Heinlein. With uncanny accuracy, they predicted the future. Can we try to do the same ?? Left Above image: The Moons of Jupiter. Telescopic video cameras on spacecraft allow us to see the planets and stars as never before. Courtesy of NASA. DNA strand is superimposed digital imaging.
Looking in the Rear View MirrorOne method to predict the future is to look at trends in the past and and assume these trends will continue. So let’s check the rear view mirror and look into our past history. A cursory look at the history of western civilization reveals a few important milestones. Above left : Rear View Mirror courtesy of Wikimedia commons.
The first milestone was the emergence of verbal communication, human speech, the ability to talk and communicate thoughts. We don’t know when this happened because it was before recorded history.
The next milestone is the invention of the phonetic alphabet and written language about 5,500 years ago. Writing gave us a method to record and play back human thought on a piece of paper. Of course, our brains do this for us. We can remember things. But our poor brains get tired and we forget things or fail to remember them. The ability to record events by writing thoughts on paper is a more permanent method which can be shared. Writing is good, however modern radio, television, cinema, cell phones and the internet are all far better at recording events and playing them back. Above image: Early cuneiform phonetic alphabet courtesy of wikimedia commons.
Transition from Slavery to FreedomLiteracy, the ability to read and write, is the stuff of freedom, and whenever there is a transition from slavery to freedom, literacy play a crucial role. An illiterate band of rag-tag slaves escape from captivity, and are given a written document called the Ten Commandments. The assumption here is that they have learned to read it, they are literate.
Above left image Moses with the ten commandments by Rembrandt 1659 courtesy of wikimedia commons
As I attended my son’s college graduation, I was struck by the obvious symbolism. The college student emerges from college graduation. Before he was an illiterate serf, and now he is literate and free, a “Medieval Nobleman” complete with “cap and gown”.
The Medieval Dark Ages – Knowledge is Restricted to the EliteThe earliest documents were scarce and kept hidden away. Paper was scarce and the method of reproducing written documents by hand was tedious and time consuming. Written documents remained in the hands of the privileged few during a period called the medieval Dark Ages. During this time, written language was the protected “intellectual property“ of clergy and nobility used for governance, commerce, warfare and scientific exploration. Above Left: Image example of cap and gown from wikimedia, courtesy of wikimedia commons.
Knowledge exploded with the invention of movable type and the printing press by Johan Gutenberg in 1439 which made books and written documents widely available. This ushered in a new period the Renaissance, aptly described by Marshall McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy.
The invention of movable type and the printing press produced a Renaissance, the Enlightenment, political and cultural upheaval and the rise of the nation-state.
The Industrial RevolutionThese movements, in turn, produced even more technological advances culminating in the Industrial Revolution with inventions based on cheap energy in the form of fossil fuels. The steam engine, electricity, magnetism, electronics, radio, television, the gasoline engine and finally, the computer chip and internet. Above left image: Early steam engines courtesy wikimedia commons.
Chart below shows life expectancy increasing linearly starting around 1820, as a result of the Industrial Revolution. (32).
The Industrial Revolution stood on the shoulders of the previous three centuries, the Enlightenment and the Renaissance periods, and made possible the mass production of goods and services resulting in vastly improved living standards, and a linear increase in life expectancy from 1820 to present time (see left chart). Chart from: Life_Expectancy, courtesy of Jim Oeppen and James W.Vaupel, SCIENCE VOL 296 10 MAY 2002 (32)
Before the Industrial Revolution, average life expectancy was only 35 years, going all the way back to Ancient times. After the Industrial Revolution, there is a linear increase in life expectancy from 38 years in 1850, to 70 years in 2004.(32)(27)(28)
Left chart courtesy of Bradford Delong
Today is the first time in human history we have a population of people over the age of 50. These are the aging Baby Boomers.
This linear increase in life expectancy is expected to continue, and serves as a trend useful in predicting the future.
Aldous Huxley predicted this overpopulation trend will lead to global totalitarian government and loss of individual freedoms. Left Image Aldous Huxley.
So, in summary, the Industrial Revolution raised living standards and increased life expectancy resulting in a relative population pressures in relation to global supply of food, clothing, shelter and raw materials. These are conditions ripe for global warfare, and to the victor goes the spoils.
The post-Industrial Revolution Era shares similarities with the Medieval Dark Ages, Both had restrictions on technical knowledge which was restricted to government, military, corporations, universities and elite professional groups such as physicians. The Dark Ages had their incessant feudal warfare, and after the Industrial Revolution another series of global conventional wars, WWI and WWII.
The first in a series of Industrial Wars was the American Civil War in 1861-1864. Although fought entirely on American soil, I consider this a prelude to the later two world wars.
Disruptive Science of Kuhn Leads to Atomic BombIn 1905 Classical Newtonian Physics was replaced by Einstein’s Relativity, a revolution in Physics, and an example of “Disruptive Science” described in Thomas Kuhn’s book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (29).
This scientific revolution was required and needed to invent the Atomic Bomb. Harry Truman’s use of the new Atomic weapon on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, August 1945, marked the end of conventional warfare, ushering in the Atomic Age, a new era of anxiety over nuclear annihilation which could be accidentally or intentionally triggered at any time. In this new age, unrestricted global warfare threatened to destroy the entire planet, hence the creation of “Cold War” limited to the use of conventional weapons. Left Image animated atomic bomb explosion Nevada test site courtesy of wikimedia commons.
Mass media of the 19th and 20th centuries, newspapers, radio and television was disseminated to the masses as propaganda to advance political or corporate power. The individual in this scenario is merely a passive recipient of information.
Mass media is a useful tool for marketing products or for manufacture consent for the political process. These mass media tools allowed for another prediction to come to fruition. George Orwell’s novel 1984, predicted a bleak future of Big Brother, the Surveillance State, “5 minutes of hate” and perpetual global warfare. (3)(4) Perhaps this is our future.
The Renaissance, Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution made possible the invention of scientific instruments to extend human senses. The microscope is invented, allowing us to see the world of microbes, creating microbiology and inventing antibiotics. Infectious disease is conquered. Left image: Measles Virus, Electron Microscope Image Courtesy of Wikipedia
In modern medicine we have appearance of new instruments which extend the vision and the eye to previously invisible areas in the natural world. Turning inward, medical imaging allows us to see into the workings of the human body. Xrays, CAT scans, Ultrasound, Radionuclide etc allow us to see inside the human body. (42). Laboratory instruments allow us to measure blood and tissue chemistry with great accuracy. Each year there are new advances in basic science, biology, and biochemistry which change the practice of medicine.
Expectations and RealityIn spite of the great achievements in medical science, such as the conquest of infectious disease, the inventions of antibiotics, the invention of anesthesia and sterile technique making surgical procedures possible, etc., critics of the medical system point out the disconnect between the promise and the reality. (42) One such critic is Ivan Illich in his essay, Medical Nemesis : The Expropriation of Health published in 1976. (5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)
This disconnect was perhaps best described by pediatrician Robert Mendelsohn MD my medical school adviser in 1976 at the University of Illinois Medical School. His 1979 book, is entitled Confessions of a Medical Heretic. (left image)
These two books by Mendelsohn and Illich perhaps best exemplify the Medieval Dark Age of Medicine, in which medical information is restricted to medical professionals and not to be shared with the layman.
In another form of Kuhn’s “Disruptive Science”, the Internet Age has turned everything upside down, and created a Renaissance, representing a new openness of information. This is especially true in medicine, with the advent of the empowered autonomous E-patient with access to online medical information.
No longer is information centrally controlled by the elite few. The new media on the Internet is run by individual web sites, blogs and message boards with video and audio streams, directly competing with conventional media in the form of television, radio and print media. The more successful online sites empower the individual to create and manage their own radio, television and motiob picture studio, and broadcasting station. This is FaceBook (left image facebook logo courtesy of wikimedia commons).
The Internet Renaissance allows the individual access to previously protected information, and allows them to share information on the internet. In addition, by sharing and comparing information, new knowledge is can be created. This new collaborative knowledge flows freely and is unprotected by patent or copyright intellectual property laws, and will soon seriously compete with existing conventional medical knowledge, which after all, is based on the drug company funded double blind placebo controlled randomized trial.
A Hong Kong dermatologist writes on the Internet an article that vitamin B5 deficiency is associated with Acne, and Acne will improve simply by taking vitamin B5. (37) This vitamin is safe, with no adverse side effects, and is widely available without a prescription. Thousands of acne sufferers try the vitamin B5 treatment and report their progress on hundred of acne message boards across the internet along with before and after digital photos. The net result is the creation of new knowledge on the efficacy of Vitamin B5 for acne. This knowledge is in the public domain and cannot be copyrighted or protected by intellectual property law. This method is especially useful for vitamins, supplements and other natural substances which are generally regarded as safe, and yet will never generate enough money to pay for the expensive drug trials.
Thus new knowledge is created and shared interactively without concern for intellectual property laws. The internet gives us the “online community” in which individuals share written, audio and video information. This was previously the domain of specialized libraries restricted to privileged groups.
– The Jenny Ruhl web site Diabetes Update.
Jenny is a self taught diabetes expert who has condensed the collaborative knowledge from many diabetes message boards into her her book, Blood Sugar 101: What They Don’t Tell You About Diabetes.
– Stop the Thyroid Madness Blog .by Janie Bowthorpe.
Janie’s book is: Stop the Thyroid Madness: A Patient Revolution Against Decades of Inferior Treatment
– Lynne Farrow with her web site, Breast CancerChoices
Her book , The Iodine Crisis: What You Don’t Know About Iodine Can Wreck Your Life,
End of Part One
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The Structure of DNAAlthough elucidating the structure of DNA was credited to Watson and Crick in 1953, some believe this credit should have gone to Rosalind Franklin (left image). She was the X-ray crystallography expert whose photos actually revealed the double helix structure of DNA. She should have been credited with the discovery given the Nobel prize along with Watson and Crick. Unfortunately, she died of breast cancer and never received the award. (24)
The discovery of DNA and its structure opened up a new world of DNA sequencing, bio-technology, molecular biology, and the Human Genome Project which sequenced the entire human genome.(25) The first humane genome sequence cost 300 million dollars. This is now offered online for under a thousand. We can expect the cost to go down to a few hundred dollars in the near future making this test available for most e-patients.
Above Image: Rosalind Franklin, DNA x-ray crystallography expert courtesy of wikipedia
DNA resides in the nucleus of all living cells and contains the source code for protein synthesis, and controls the growth, metabolism and reproduction of the organism from embryo to adult. In essence, DNA is the master controller of the cell, like the source code that runs your computer. Mutations in DNA cause genetic disease
Left Image: Animated 3-D Structure of DNA Molecule Double Helix Courtesy of Wikipedia
Bio-Identical human hormones are messengers which attach to the DNA, turning on DNA protein synthesis.(see diagram below) After age 50, hormonal decline leads to reduced protein synthesis and the onset of degenerative diseases. Bio-identical hormone replacement restores DNA protein synthesis, thereby delaying or reversing the onset of degenerative disease.
The Drug Paradigm is based on chemically altering a natural substance to obtain a patent. Synthetic, chemically altered hormones should never have been made nor marketed to the population. These were found to cause cancer and heart disease in the 2002 Women’s Health Initiative Study. The original natural substance is usually the better medicine. This is true for bioidentical hromones as it is for most other drugs.
Linus Pauling PhD Abram Hoffer MD PhD
Orthomolecular Medicine, a term coined in 1968 by Linus Pauling and Abram Hoffer MD. This advocates is the preferred use of natural substances in medicine rather than chemically altered synthetic drugs. (19)
Quote from Linus Pauling PhD: Example of natural B12 used to treat a genetic disease:
“An example is the effectiveness of cyanocobalamin (vitamin B12) given in amounts 1,000 times greater than normal to control the disease methylmalonic aciduria (11-14). About half of the patients with this disease are successfully treated with megadoses of vitamin B12. In these patients a genetic mutation has occurred and an altered apoenzyme that has a greatly reduced affinity for the coenzyme has been produced. Increase in concentration of the coenzyme can counteract the effect of the decrease in the value of the combining constant and lead to the formation of enough of the active enzyme to catalyze effectively the reaction of conversion of methylmalonic acid to succinic acid.” (20)
The use of confidential online genetic testing is available online without a doctor’s prescription. See DNA Direct online confidential testing. Genetic testing will become mainstream, cheaper, and easier, and will provide more an more useful information as medical science uncovers more links between genetic variants and disease states. It will play a dominant role in the medicine of the future. Genetic testing will be used to predict disease risk, preventive planing, and family planning.
Genetic tests currently available: see Understanding Genetic Testing.
Simply watch the Michael Moore Movie, “Sicko”, for a preview of our dysfunctional health insurance industry. The movie convincingly suggests the entire system is broken and in need of major change. The only question is what will health insurance look like in 10-20 years? Will the industry survive?
Here is a future prediction about the health insurance industry: It will be regulated as a public utility, similar to the way the states regulate electric power utility companies. We all need electricity delivered to our homes, and we cannot function without it. Medical care is similar. If we need medical care, whether it is a blood transfusion, IV fluids, an operation for bowel obstruction or a simple antibiotic, we need it same as we need electricity for our homes and factories. We need it NOW and cant function without it. For more on health insurance see my previous articleon this topic.(26)
The FDA will change. Here is an example of a fictitious scenario which explains the problems with modern drug development and the FDA: In this scenario, a clever drug company biochemist adds a chlorine molecule to the vitamin C carbon ring, obtains a patent, then funds the trials which are submitted to the FDA. The trials show a small half per cent decrease in heart disease, so the FDA approves the new vitamin C drug as useful in the prevention of heart disease. Amazingly, this absurd scenario has been the norm for the past century, and highlights the severe limitations of the FDA. Why would anyone spend $3 a pill for chlorinated vitamin C when the real vitamin C is available for pennies?
Fifty years ago, Aldous Huxley predicted the end of democracy and individual freedom. He predicted they will be replaced by some form of totalitarian state. He mentions overpopulation as one of the driving forces leading to loss of individual freedom and totalitarianism. We have seen progressive increase in human lifespan, and its inevitable population pressures. Global population doubling time is now only 50 years. Victory over the forces of nature, paradoxically, has created the overpopulation bomb, which Huxley predicted, will lead to global totalitarianism. Huxley also mentions advances in media technology (television and Madison avenue advertising) allowing the few to control the many with propaganda which bypasses the rational mind.(44)(45)
Perhaps he is right. However. the openness and decentralization of the Internet Revolution may tip the balance in favor of individual freedom. There is still the strong possibility that free democratic governments anywhere (even here) could fall into the hands of a despot who imposes a totalitarian state. If this road is taken, it could halt or even reverse the Internet Renaissance. In this typical scenario, the government declares Marshall Law in response to real or imagined military threat, repeals individual freedoms, and closes public access to the Internet, creating a centralized totalitarian regime, and surveillance state as we have seen previously in examples around the globe.
Naomi Wolf’s book, The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot
agrees with Aldous Huxley’s predictions. The book describes the ten steps used to crush democracy and usher in a police state. We in the United States have already taken the first few steps, imprisonment without due process, torture of prisoners, criminalization of dissent, unwarranted surveillance, militarization of the police, etc. )(40) The end result is pre-ordained.
Image of The Moon Calisto Courtesy of NASA
Dr Dixon is a physician and trends analyst and a medical futurist who writes and lectures on the future of medicine. (31) Much of Dr. Dixon’s flowery predictions for gene manipulation and human cloning is simply rubbish. Our current biotechnology tools are crude and our understanding is limited, so that any efforts in this area will only result in Frankenstein creations.
Here is a quote from Biotech expert, Dr. Mae-Wan Ho at a Workshop on Agriculture and the Developing World in Washington DC, April 2001.
GMOs, as currently made, are unsafe and unsustainable, as well as immoral. We must abandon GM crops and all other attempts to genetic engineer plants, animals and human beings with a technology that is widely acknowledged to be unreliable, uncontrollable and unpredictable.”
Genetic manipulation is inherently unsafe and dangerous, sort of like giving a loaded gun to a child. It may take one or two more centuries before our understanding of molecular biology and genetic engineering gives us the tools to actually do anything safely with the genome.
In 1989, a new human disease was identified called EMS, Eosinophilia Myalgia Syndrome which killed 37 people and affected thousands. This disease was eventually traced back to a Japanese company (Showa Denko) that had used genetically engineered bacteria to manufacture tryptophan, a naturally occurring amino acid food supplement. The process of genetic modification transformed a normally safe and natural food into a Frankenstein food causing a disease.
Image Left: Boris Karloff in Frankenstein 1931. Courtesy of Wikimedia.
We now have a similar problem with the widespread use of genetically modified food in the United States which are unlabeled and untested. Some of these genetically modified foods include Round-Up Ready corn, soy and canola and Bt corn which produces the Bt toxin. Since it is highly likely that these new genetically modified foods are causing allergic reactions, diseases, and infertility in the population, you might think it would be prudent to label these foods so that any new disease could be traced back to the cause. However, because of corporate control of the FDA regulatory process, the FDA has ruled GMO food to be “substantially equivalent” and no labeling or even safety testing required.
We can be fairly sure that in the near future, medicine will be faced with a nightmare scenario of a host of new unpredicted and unexpected diseases related to GMO food consumption. We can expect to see increases in food allergies, gastrointestinal disorders such as inflammatory bowel disease, infertility and sterility, and other completely unexpected and unpredicted effects of GMO food consumption. Other nightmare scenarios caused by genetic manipulation include new epidemics caused by antibiotic resistant bacteria, lethal super viruses, and bizarre forms of leukemia and other cancers caused by genetic manipulation in the laboratory accidentally or intentionally released into the environment.
I believe it is highly likely that medical science will soon have an effective treatment for cancer. Molecular biology will explain the mechanism of cancerous transformation of living cells and provide insight into halting cancerous cells using non-toxic natural substances. For more on this, see my article on the trophoblastic theory of cancer. This will lead to more effective and curative treatments for aggressive cancers which are non-responsive to current crude treatment methods.
This is a promising new technique used for orthopedic injections, stimulating healing of joints and cartilage. This techniques uses autologous cells, so it is FDA approved and available in the every day medical office. See this news article. Link
Links to Articles of Related Interest:
Understanding Online Genetic Testing by Jeffrey Dach MD
Why We Need Single Payer Health Care by Jeffrey Dach MD
Genetically Modified GMO Food, the Great Scandal by Jeffrey Dach MD
Genetically Modified GMO Food, Part II by Jeffrey Dach MD
Studies Show Animals Harmed By GMO Food by Jeffrey Dach MD
Jeffrey Dach MD
www.jeffreydach.com
www.drdach.com
www.naturalmedicine101.com
www.truemedmd.com
link to this article:http://wp.me/P3gFbV-Af
References
(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Gutenberg
Johan Gutenberg
(2) http://www.marshallmcluhan.com/
Marshall McLuhan divides history in four epochs: the oral tribe culture, the manuscript culture, the Guten-berg galaxy and the electronic age. For the break between the time periods in each case the occurrence of a new medium is responsible, the hand-writing terminates the oral phase, the printing and the electricity revolutionizes afterwards culture and society.
(3) http://www.mondopolitico.com/library/1984/1984.htm
Online version of George Orwells 1984
(4) http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/1984/
Searchable Online version of George Orwells 1984
Ivan Illich Medical Nemesis
(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)
(5) http://www.carj.ca/issues/2005-Feb/13/pg13.pdf
Lessons from Ivan Illich Editorial in Canadian Journal of Radiology CARJ
(6) http://www.mindfully.org/Health/Medical-Nemesis-Illich1976.htm
Medical Nemesis:The Expropriation of Health
[Includes acknowledgements, introduction and Part1 – Clinical Iatrogenesis]
IVAN ILLICH / Random House 1976
(7) http://members.aol.com/pbchowka/medicalnemesis2006.html
Medical Nemesis 2006 By Peter Barry Chowka
In 2006, the threats posed by Medicine Inc., a term I have used since the 1980s to describe the international conventional medical-industrial-pharmaceutical-government complex, have expanded and loom larger than Illich’s original readers could have ever imagined.
(8) http://www.planetpapers.com/Assets/3621.php
The quotation “the medical establishment is a major threat to health” was one devised by Illich in Medical Nemesis (1976 p11) where he attempted to explain the detrimental effects medical professionals and their procedures can have on the health of individuals.
(9) http://www.lewrockwell.com/wall/wall28.html
A Turbulent Priest in the Global Village Ivan Illich, 1926–2002 by Richard Wall
Ivan Illich sees three levels of iatrogenesis (doctor-induced disease).
a) Clinical iatrogenesis is the injury done to patients by ineffective, toxic and unsafe treatments… Illich points out that 7% of patients suffer injuries while hospitalised…..
b) Social iatrogenesis results from the medicalisation of life. More and more of life’s problems are seen as amenable to medical intervention. Pharmaceutical companies develop expensive treatments for non-diseases…Worse than all this.. is
c) cultural iatrogenesis, the destruction of traditional ways of dealing with and making sense of death, pain and sickness. “A society’s image of death,” argues Illich, “reveals the level of independence of its people, their personal relatedness, self-reliance, and aliveness.” For Illich, ours is a morbid society….”
(10) http://brandon.multics.org/library/Ivan%20Illich/against_life.html
BRAVE NEW BIOCRACY: HEALTH CARE FROM WOMB TO TOMB , By: Illich, Ivan, NPQ: New Perspectives Quarterly, Winter94, Vol. 11, Issue 1
(11) http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/311/7021/1652
BMJ 1995;311:1652-1653 (23 December) British Medical Journal
Editorials: Death undefeated by Ivan Illich
(12) http://www.davidtinapple.com/illich/1990_health_responsibility.PDF
Ivan Illich, HEALTH AS ONE’S OWN RESPONSIBILITY – NO, THANK YOU!
Based on a speech given in Hannover, Germany, September 14,1990
Robert Mendelsohn MD
(13)(14)(15)(16)
(13) http://www.whale.to/v/mendelsohn.html
Dr Robert Mendelsohn received his Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Chicago in 1951. For 12 years he was an instructor at Northwest University Medical College, and an additional 12 years served as Associtae Professor of Pediatrics and Community Health and Preventive Medicine at the University of Illinois College of Medicine. He was also President of the National Health Federation, former National Director of Project Head Starts Medical Consultation Service, and Chairman of the Medical Licensing Comittee of the State of Illinois. He appeared on over 500 television and radio talk shows, and is the author of Confessions of a Medical Heretic, Male Practice: How Doctors Manipulate Women, and How To Raise a Healthy Child In Spite of Your Doctor
(14) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_S._Mendelsohn
Robert S. Mendelsohn, MD, (b. 1926, d.1988) was an American pediatrician who criticized his profession, inveighing against pediatric practice, obstetric orthodoxy and the effect of the preponderance of male obstetricians, and vaccination. He also opposed water fluoridation, coronary bypass surgery, licensing of nutritionists, and the routine use of X-Rays. For 12 years, Mendelsohn was an instructor at Northwestern University Medical College, and was associate professor of pediatrics and community health and preventive medicine at the University of Illinois College of Medicine for another 12 years.
From 1981 to 1982, Mendelsohn was president of the National Health Federation. He also served as National Director of Project Head Start’s Medical Consultation Service (a position he was later forced to resign after criticizing the public school system), and as Chairman of the Medical Licensing Committee of Illinois. He often spoke at NHF conventions and produced a newsletter and a syndicated newspaper column, both called The People’s Doctor. He appeared on over 500 television and radio talk shows. In 1986, the National Nutritional Foods Association gave Mendelsohn its annual Rachel Carson Memorial Award for his “concerns for the protection of the American consumer and health freedoms.”
Mendelsohn considered himself a “medical heretic.” One of his books charged that “Modern Medicine’s treatments for disease are seldom effective, and they’re often more dangerous than the diseases they’re designed to treat”; that “around ninety percent of surgery is a waste of time, energy, money and life”; and that most hospitals are so loosely run that “murder is even a clear and present danger.”
(15) http://www.metzelf.info/Book%20Reviews/confessions.html
Confessions of a Medical Heretic by Robert S. Mendelsohn, MD 1979 Reviewed by Mira de Vries
(16) http://www.cam.org/~rsilver/sickmed.htm
Sickening Medicine A Book Review by Bob Silverman,
When experienced doctors start writing books about the dangers to our health of Modern Medicine, we can be sure that there is much that is sick under the white coat. Reflecting upon his experience Dr. Mendelsohn notes, “l believe that despite the super technology and elite bedside manner that’s supposed to make you feel as well cared for as an astronaut on the way to the moon, the greatest danger to your health is the doctor who practices Modern Medicine. I believe that Modern Medicine’s treatments for diseases are seldom effective, and that they are often more dangerous than the diseases they’re designed to treat. I believe that the dangers are compounded by the widespread usage of dangerous procedures for non-diseases. I believe that more than ninety percent of Modern Medicine could disappear from the face of the earth- doctors, hospitals, drugs and equipment- and the effect on our health would be immediate and beneficial.”
(17) http://www.furiousseasons.com/zyprexadocs.html
Zyprexa Documents- Since its inception in 2005, this blog has been all about offering transparency and accountability in the mental health world. Transparency and accountability are what the media is supposed to provide in America–be it in the form of newspapers, broadcast, websites or blogs. This page contains links to documents concerning Zyprexa, an atypical antipsychotic made by Eli Lilly. It’s a drug that has been in the news, owing to these documents, since December when the New York Times broke news about allegations about the company’s alleged behavior around the marketing of Zyprexa.
(18) http://www.e-patients.net/e-Patients_White_Paper.pdf
Tom Ferguson md and E-Patients
(19) http://www.orthomolecular.org/
Orthomolecular Medicine
(20) http://orthomolecular.org/library/articles/orthotheory.shtml
On the Orthomolecular Environment of the Mind: Orthomolecular Theory
by Linus Pauling, Ph.D. Journal Of Orthomolecular Medicine Vol. 7, No. 1, 1995
(21) (22)http://www.acor.org/e-patients_wiki/index.php/Main_Page
Wiki version of Tom Ferguson’s White paper on e-patients
(22) http://www.e-patients.net/e-Patients_White_Paper.pdf
PDF version of white paper
E-Patients are driving a healthcare revolution of major proportions,
“The old Industrial Age paradigm, in which health professionals were viewed as the exclusive source of medical knowledge and wisdom, is gradually giving way to a new Information Age worldview in which patients, family caregivers, and systems and newtworks they create are increasingly seen as important healthcare resources. But the emerging world of the e-patient cannort be fully understood and appreciated in the context of the pre-Internet medical constructs.”
“The medical worldview of the 20th Century did not recognize the legitamacy of lay medical competence and autonomy. Thus its metrics, research methods, and cultural vocabulary are poorly suited to studying this emerging field. Something akin to a system upgrade in our thinking is needed – a new cultural operating system for healthcare in which e-patients can be recognized as a vakluable new typoe of renewable resource, managing much of their own care, providing care for others, helping professionals improve the quuality of their services, and participoating in entirely new knids of cliniian -patient collaboratoions, patient initiated research, and self managed care.”
“Developing, refining, and implementing this new open source cultural operating system will be one of the principal challenges facing healthcare in the early decades of the 21st century, But difficult as this task may prove to be, it will pay remarkable dividends, For given the recognition and support they deserve, these new medical colleagues can help us find sustainable solutions to many of the seeemingly intractable problems that now plague all modern healthcare systems.”
Kuhn normal science vs disruptive science
Normal science: Method provate and results concealed. Outdated paradigms.
Disruptive science: open collaborative, facillitates developement of new world view.
See Chapter 7 (page 107): The Autonomous Patient and Reconfiguration of Medical Knowledge
(24) http://www.ba-education.demon.co.uk/for/science/dnamain.html
Discovery of Double Helix of DNA
(25) http://www.genome.gov/
Genome Project
(26) http://jeffreydach.com/2008/02/24/
fighting-the-abusive-practices-of-health-insurance-companies-by-jeffrey-dach-md.aspx
(27) http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005140.html
Life Expectancy by Age, 1850–2004
1850 38.3, 1890 42.5, 1900 48.23 1910 50.23
Mostly due to infant mortality rates
(28) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy
Data from Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1961
(29) http://www.des.emory.edu/mfp/Kuhnsnap.html
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions – Thomas S. Kuhn; Paperback
(30) http://www.ageofpersonalizedmedicine.org/
Personalized Medicine
(31) http://www.globalchange.com/medicine.htm
PAtrick Dixon 2002 Video, Future of HealthCare
(32) Life_expectancy_science May2002
Broken Limits to Life Expectancy Jim Oeppen and James W.Vaupe from SCIENCE VOL 296 10 MAY 2002.
Patrick Dixon Future of Health Care
Keynote conference speaker Dr Patrick Dixon, addressing AARP national leaders. This video is in 3 parts on YouTube. Science of ageing. How to stop getting old. Medical research into physiology of ageing. How cells get old. Tissue regeneration of heart, muscle, retina, spine, brain and other organs. Repair of tissue damage. Organ regeneration. Cure for blood pressure? New facelift therapy? Humpback whales, Rockfish Project and slow ageing in turtles and parrots. Human impact of anti-aging therapy. Social impact of living longer. Impact on longevity forecasts for life insurance and pensions risk. Cure for deafness and cure for macular degeneration. Future of health care, latest research into cancer, stroke, heart disease, ageing. Longer more active lives and the end of formal retirement age. The new stages of life. Keeping in step with your biological clock. How your brain repairs itself every day. How your bone marrow cells can help heal your own heart. Why some animals don’t age in the normal way. How adult stem cells could cure blindness from macular degeneration. The future of hospitals and clinics, pharmaceutical industry and wellbeing. How older people will dominate decisions about health care and government health planning. Contrasts between wealthy and poor, rationing and health financing.
Patrick Dixon Future of Health Care – part 1 of 3
(33) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXCT5DWPKOQ
Patrick Dixon Future of Health Care – part 2 of 3
(34) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M99XoCocaB4
Patrick Dixon Future of Health Care – part 3 of 3
(35) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHPeHEAl-rU
(36) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Dixon
Patrick Dixon says “Trying to protect or copyright your own management ideas is a last-century nonsense: absurd and illogical.”
(37) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7476595
Med Hypotheses. 1995 Jun;44(6):490-2.
Pantothenic acid deficiency as the pathogenesis of acne vulgaris.
Leung LH. Department of General Surgery, Hong Kong Central Hospital, Hong Kong.
For years, the pathogenesis of acne vulgaris has been known to be strongly influenced by hormonal factors. However, the exact role of and the interrelationship among the various hormones in question have not been well elucidated. Here, I wish to suggest a radically different theory for its pathogenesis and relate its basic pathology to a deficiency in pantothenic acid, a vitamin hitherto not known to cause any deficiency syndrome in humans. Hence, the effect of hormonal factors in this disease entity becomes secondary to that of the availability of pantothenic acid. A complete cure of this condition is effected by a very liberal replacement therapy with the vitamin.
(38) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9M40dCHvLY
The Genomic Revolution and the Future of Medicine and Health. Dr. Richard Klausner discusses the topic of the Genomic Revolution and the Future of Medicine and Health. Recorded in Wolstein Audiorium on November 1, 2007.
(39) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1KEFgD6Dtg
Karsten Staack made this video for some events in the Detailed Roadmap of the 21st Century
http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~pesti/roadmap/
The 21st Century: What will it look like? This is a very entertaining look at the Future, with excellent music and interesting images, inspirational.
Naomi Wolf the End of America
(40) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0LvtQAQ6sc
Fascinating interview with renowned author Naomi Wolf, perhaps best known for her early 1990s feminist classic “The Beauty Myth”, considered by many to be one of the most important works of the 20th century. Wolf discusses her new book “The End of America“, already on the New York Times bestseller list. The book identifies ten classic steps common to all dictatorships — including those of Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin. Alarmingly, Wolf makes the case that each of these ten steps is occurring in post 9/11 America today. The book is a call to action for young and concerned Americans and this interview intimately frames this important discussion.
Personalized Medicine
(41)
http://www.genome.gov/Pages/News/webcasts/Personalized_Medicine_files/0Media.asx
http://www.genome.gov/Pages/News/webcasts/
Personalized_Medicine_files/Default.htm#nopreload=1
video presentation Personalized Medicine:
How the Human Genome Era Will Usher in a Health Care Revolution
Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D. Personalized Medicine Coalition February 10, 2005
History of Medicine
(42) http://books.google.com/books?id=__oDQ6yDO7kC&dq=history+of+medicine&lr=&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0
History of Medicine: A Scandalously Short Introduction By Jacalyn Duffin
Aldous Huxley
(43) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_State
The World State is the primary setting of Aldous Huxley’s 1932 dystopian novel Brave New World. In the novel, The World State is a unified government which administers the entire planet, with a few isolated exceptions.
(44) http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/multimedia/video/2008/wallace/huxley_aldous_t.html
Video 1958 Mike Wallace interview with Aldous Huxley author of Brave New World.
(45) http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/multimedia/video/2008/wallace/huxley_aldous.html
Transcript 1958 Mike Wallace interview with Aldous Huxley author of brave new world.
Richard Klausner MD
http://www.cancer.gov/newscenter/klausnerleave
9/11/01 NCI Director Richard Klausner Will Leave NIH to Head the Case Institute
Richard D. Klausner, M.D., announced today that he plans to step down from his post as director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on Sept. 30. “It has been a privilege and an honor to head one of the world’s great scientific institutions dedicated to the advancement and application of science aimed at reducing the burden of one of humanity’s feared diseases,” Klausner said in a letter explaining his decision to President George W. Bush.
“I appreciate the extraordinary support of your administration for me, for the NCI, and for biomedical research,” Klausner wrote. “The NCI is a jewel that I have had the honor to lead, and it is a family comprised of the most dedicated and effective public servants that I can imagine.”
Klausner is leaving NCI to become president of the Case Institute of Health, Science and Technology, a new philanthropic enterprise launched by the Case Foundation, the family foundation of AOL Time Warner Chairman Steve Case and his wife, Jean.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002490773_klausner14.html
September 13, 2005 Gates Foundation exec quits; says move not tied to federal investigation
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/255199_klausner11.html
Wednesday, January 11, 2006 Biotech venture fund aims for $500 million
Dr. Richard Klausner, the former director of the National Cancer Institute who most recently led the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s global health program, is looking to raise as much as $500 million for a new venture capital fund. Dubbed The Column Group, the fund would be based in Seattle with the possibility of a branch office in the San Francisco Bay Area, Klausner said.
http://www.thecolumngroup.net/mngPart.html
column group Klausner
http://www.mindfully.org/Industry/Glaxo-Ghana-AIDS-Drugs.htm
Glaxo Attempts to Block Access To Generic AIDS Drugs in Ghana. MARK SCHOOFS / WALL STREET JOURNAL 1dec00
Marshal McLuhan
http://www.marshallmcluhan.com/
MArshall Mcluhan MAin Site
http://faculty.law.pitt.edu/hibbitts/mcl.htm
This page features links to biographical material as well as links to journals, papers, projects, courses, research centers and new releases relevant to the life and work of the late Canadian communications theorist Marshall McLuhan.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqZNGYit3kY
Media professor/expert Paul Levinson on new media influence. Philosophical interview about the state and future of the media with Fordham University’s Chair of Communication and Media Studies, Paul Levinson. Levinson is the author of numerous fictional and nonfiction books including “Digital McLuhan” and “The Soft Edge” and has appeared in countless media venues from PBS to Fox to offer his insight on media issues. Levinson discusses the current exponential rise of new media and what this means for us all in terms of expression, information and challenge. He also discusses his thoughts on the iconic Marshall McLuhan and what he would think of the extraordinary digital age we live and now create in.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqZNGYit3kY
Media professor/expert Paul Levinson on new media influence. Philosophical interview about the state and future of the media with Fordham University’s Chair of Communication and Media Studies, Paul Levinson. Levinson is the author of numerous fictional and nonfiction books including “Digital McLuhan” and “The Soft Edge” and has appeared in countless media venues from PBS to Fox to offer his insight on media issues. Levinson discusses the current exponential rise of new media and what this means for us all in terms of expression, information and challenge. He also discusses his thoughts on the iconic Marshall McLuhan and what he would think of the extraordinary digital age we live and now create in.
Predicting the Future – Links
http://scienceroll.com/2008/04/25/personalized-medicine-real-clinical-examples/
Personalized Medicine
http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/
Transhumanism, AI, nanotechnology, and existential risk.
http://unboundedmedicine.com/
future of surgery
http://futurehealthtrends.blogspot.com/
Future Health Trends
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Predicting The Future of Medicine by Jeffrey Dach MD - Jeffrey Dach MD July 23, 2013 at 5:58 AM
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