This is an article written by my good friend Dr. Harte. I am sure most of you remember hearing me talk about this on my radio show for over four years. I will be back on the air on a new station shortly with Dr. Reed from Vancouver.
WHY DO YOU STILL BELIEVE?
“The great enemy of truth is often not the lie… deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth…persistent, pervasive and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations, and we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.” – JFK
Just a few months ago, the incredibly marketing statin (cholesterol-lowering) drug, Vitorin, was found, by research, to be, well… useless. Did it work? Yes! Confused? Good. At least now, you know.
NOTE: For those who are not taking statin drugs, don’t have a loved one taking statin drugs, or are otherwise uninterested in this particular issue, PLEASE READ ON. This discussion has an importance that reaches to every corner of Medicine.
Vitorin did succeed in lowering three “risk” markers in the blood, LDL (low density, or “bad,” cholesterol), triglycerides, and C-reactive proteins. All these factors are supposed to, believed to, have a massive effect upon “cardiovascular health,” or what passes for health in medical circles. (In this area, “health” means NOT getting a hear attack or a stroke, not necessarily maximal function.) So, lowering not one, not two, but all three of these factors should have a profound effect upon morbidity (sickness) and mortality (death). By this “logic,” Vitorin should have accomplished this.
The results of the research? Taking Vitorin resulted in absolutely no improvement in morbidity, no improvement in mortality, in both the general test population, and in all sub-groups. In other words, the administration of this drugs was found to do… nothing. Well, not exactly nothing. Vitorin, and its pharmaceutical cousins, have numerous adverse effects, some serious, some potentially fatal. These include muscle damage and pain, and/or liver damage. When they say, in the TV commercials, that your doctor will test you, regularly, for potential liver damage, many don’t. Besides, by the time your liver tests show up positive, you may be in very deep water. Perhaps the most “colorful” adverse effect is rhabdomyalosis, which is a sudden breakdown of muscle tissue into the bloodstream, backing up the kidneys, leading to death. Some years ago, a member of my practice lost her husband (who was “otherwise healthy”) to rhabdomyalosis. (In the PDR, the Physicians’ desk reference, this adverse effect appears as a “Black Box Warning,” the sternest warning short of pulling the drug.)
So, if Vitorin has been proved to be useless, while bearing many dangerous side effects, one can easily extrapolate to the other statin drugs, Zocor, Mevachor, Prevachol, Zetia. After all, they are all trying to do essentially the same thing, reduce “cardiovascular risks” that are, in fact, mythological. Yes, I said mythological.
Would you risk you life for a medical myth? I suppose that They still expect YOU to do that. Did the maker of Vitorin have any plans to suspend or stop marketing, let alone pull the drug? Of course not. The news releases, of course, all bore the admonition, “Consult your physician.” Well, if your physician wants you to take a drug or drugs that are useless, at best, and dangerous, at worst, why employ him or her? Use your head.
Some of my older practice members are taking Coumadin, or Warfarin, a blood thinner that is the active ingredient in rat poison. They were all given good medical “reasons” why they must take this drug, and take it for life. They believe that the lab tests show that their blood “thickness’ is just right. How can this be, when I see all kinds of bruises on their arms and legs? I explain to them that if there is bleeding where you can see, there is bleeding inside, where you can’t see.
Clearly, the Emperor has no clothes. Why do you still believe? Why does society still believe to the point of worship? Why do the politicians try to whip us up that we need more of what already doesn’t work? With the addition of prescription drugs to Medicare, in the last two or three years, has the health of senior citizens improved?
Or was this “benefit” just a benefit for the pharmaceutical corporations?
What is “accepted” by “everyone” about what is called “health care” may not be correct. How many “miracle drugs” have been taken off the market, after killing thousands, sometimes tens of thousands? What ever happened to frontal lobotomies? Radium nasal suppositories for sinus problems? Bleeding? Thalidomide? Vioxx? In the sixteenth century in England, doctors were well versed in astrology (perhaps as well as modern pharmaceutical companies are in marketing) and used in extensively in diagnosing, and even in the harvesting of herbs. The cure for all ailments of the eye was to blow desiccated dog dung into the eye. Well, it was probably much safer than taking statin drugs.
By now, if you have had an open enough mind to follow me to this point, I know that you have one burning question in your mind: “If I can’t trust my doctor, who can I trust? What else can one do?” Well, as Cat Stevens sung, about thirty-five years ago, “The answer lies within.” Your body has, within itself, the ability to run itself, and to heal itself when sick. In Chiropractic, we call this the Innate Intelligence. Everything is controlled and coordinated by the brain and the nervous system. When there is interference to the nervous system from old injuries in the spine (painful or not, new or decades old), the body fails to run itself properly. Blood pressure may become elevated. Cholesterol levels may become abnormal. The heart may not beat in a healthy manner. The condition of the blood may not be good. However, everyone is different. What constitutes a normal level of this or that kind of cholesterol will be different from one person to another, and will be different within one person as conditions change. The M.D. doesn’t know what the levels should be, nor does the lab, nor do I. Your own Innate Intelligence knows.
What to do, in real life? Have you been looking for health in all the wrong places?
One may call a chiropractor for back pain, but that is not the reason for Chiropractic. We remove interferences to the nervous system, allowing the Innate Intelligence to do its thing. It’s thing is to get you healthy and keep you healthy.
So, why do you still believe what everybody else believes? Maybe the only reason is that everybody else does. Use your own common sense. Think for yourself. Get chiropractic care for yourself and your family, and tell everyone you know. Begin to help others look for health IN THE RIGHT PLACES.
