13 Over 1 million people a year( 3 to 5 percent of admissions) land in hospitals as a result of negative reactions to drugs. Tranquilizers— we take some 5 billion pills a year— bring overdosed users to hospital emergency rooms twice as often as do heroin and cocaine. Even though by now it is popular knowledge that X rays may cause cancer, over 300 million of them are ordered yearly without medical need. Radiation from diagnostic X rays is implicated in cancer, blood disorders, tumors of the central nervous system, diabetes, stroke, and cataracts. To discover the nature of our ailments, doctors send our body fluids and tissues to be looked at in specialized laboratories. But lab tests are notoriously unreliable, perhaps because of the unreliability of human perceptions: Fifty percent of laboratories licensed to perform tests for Medicare work failed in a test of the accuracy of their analyses. Therefore, thousands of people are told they are healthy when in fact they are not. Conversely, thousands of people are told that they’ re sick on the basis of erroneous laboratory reports; this in turn leads them to undergo unnecessary and often harmful treatment. In fact, some critics consider medical treatment of nonexistent diseases to be a major medical problem. 14 Perhaps the solution is closer than we think: In one study, 197 out of 200 people were“ cured” simply by having another test done! WHAT ARE THE LIMITATIONS OF MODERN MEDICINE? Medical people themselves are the first to admit that the system has severe limitations. Any medical system has them; but ours seem to be particularly galling. Modern medicine is extraordinarily adept at patching people up once they’ re already sick; but its ability to ensure health is far from satisfactory. What is it that is wrong with our medical system? One critic maintains that the problem is not the system itself, but the way in which it presents itself as the only or most effective way to treat sickness. 15
There are disorders for which the technology of modern medicine is invaluable; however, there are many others about which present medical knowledge is at a loss. Yet the prevailing attitude is,“ If the doctor doesn’ t know, nobody else could possibly know either.” Medical practices, it is important to remember, are based on and reflect the general attitudes and beliefs of a given society. The doctor may prescribe a pill that doesn’ t work, but more often than not the patient asks for it— and if it’ s not given, the patient may become upset, feel neglected, or simply go to another doctor who will obligingly provide the pill. Therefore, perhaps we should also ask: What is wrong with our contemporary assumptions about health and illness? It may be more revealing to examine them, rather than just the specifics of modern medical practice. I see three major errors in our belief system:
• The belief that physiological symptoms( headaches, fevers, pimples, and so on) are erroneous reactions of the body to normal stimuli.
• The belief that surgical intervention or chemical substances, whether of natural or artificial origin, can restore health by interrupting the process called“ disease.”
• The belief that dietary habits are unrelated to symptoms or illnesses. This belief is now in the process of being abandoned, yet I list it here because it still is held by many— for example, by people who buy antacids for stomach distress, creams for pimples, or antihypertensive medication without at the same time changing their diet. The most glaring error in our belief system, it seems to me, is the first: the assumption that physiological“ symptoms”( headaches, sneezing, fatigue, pimples, stomachaches, backaches, and all the rest) are mistakes, that they should be corrected or“ treated,” and that if this is not done, things will get worse. In short, that the physical system will deteriorate unless we intervene. In our technologically advanced times, intervention is done with highly sophisticated technology: drugs that alter physiology and function, suppress sensation, or speed up reactions; and surgery of an increasingly complicated nature. Consider this scenario: A man gets a stomachache after each meal. To“ treat” this problem, he takes( either by prescription or by self-medication) some antacid or other nostrum. Then he gets a headache( which may or may not be a side effect of the stomach medication); to“ treat” the headache he takes aspirin, which further irritates his stomach. Three years later he develops an ulcer, for which he takes another medication, plus large amounts of milk and cream( although an outmoded treatment, it is still being used today). Meanwhile, he is still taking antacids for his indigestion and eating the same way he always had. Eventually, he has an operation to remove his ulcer. He continues with his high-dairy diet. Soon thereafter he develops arteriosclerosis and high blood pressure and begins to take antihypertensive medication. The side effects of the latter include headaches, dizziness, drowsiness, diarrhea, slow heart rate, mental confusion, hallucinations, weight gain, and impotence. When his wife leaves him for a younger man, he takes antidepressants and sleeping pills. He has a heart attack and undergoes an operation to repair a heart valve. Painkillers keep him going as he slowly recuperates. A year or two later, he finds himself with an irreversible neurological disease such as ALS or Alzheimer’ s, and he wonders what could have gone wrong. All that’ s left for him to do is wait to die, which he can do in a nursing