According to Freakonomics Radio (Ep. 270, Bad Medicine, Part 3: Death by Diagnosis):

By some estimates, medical error is the third-leading cause of death in the U.S.

One of these estimates, from peer reviewed medical journal Studies in Health Technology and Informatics that’s found on NIH’s Pubmed site, states:

Recent studies of medical errors have estimated errors may account for as many as 251,000 deaths annually in the United States (U.S)., making medical errors the third leading cause of death. 

2017;234:13-17

It gets better:

At the same time less than 10 percent of medical errors are reported.

So they implemented and tested an error reporting system and this is what they found.

This study describes the results of an investigation of the effectiveness of the implementation of the MEDMARX Medication Error Reporting system in 25 hospitals in Pennsylvania. Data were collected on 17,000 errors reported by participating hospitals over a 12-month period. Latent growth curve analysis revealed that reporting of errors by health care providers increased significantly over the four quarters. At the same time, the proportion of corrective actions taken by the hospitals remained relatively constant over the 12 months. 

People and institutions don’t change easily. That’s because — according to nearly every great philosopher (Rousseau excepted) and every enduring religion — people are born as fucktards and narcissism is our Original Sin. Narcissists hate to admit that they’re wrong.

So health care workers make a lot of mistakes. Which is to be expected because the practice AND study of Medicine is as much an Art (eg. Traditional Chinese Medicine relies more on intuition) as it is a Science (whereas Western medicine is evidence based). Medicine isn’t the same as Engineering. Engineering isn’t as complex as human physiology since there’s only one governing body of rules for Physics. In Medicine, one has to account for an individual’s genetic makeup AND personal history which makes proper health management difficult and thus incompetence likely. That’s why rogue General Practitioner Dr. Vernon Coleman argues that it’s better for your health to learn how your own body works than to trust doctors who just look to cookie cutter medical standards (eg. vaccines for all) without regarding you as an individual. (See Dr. Coleman’s book How to Stop Doctors from Killing You).

Add the considerable influence of American pharmaceutical companies to the mix and there’s going to be a lot of confusion and deadly mistakes.

Look at Nutrition Science as a parallel. In 1992, the USDA introduced to Americans the Food Pyramid. It looks like this:

Which led to the popularization of low-fat and high carb diets that may have enabled the obesity epidemic and raise the risk of heart disease by adversely affecting levels of blood lipids, LDL patterns, and HDL and triglycerides. So in 2011, they replaced it with My Plate, it looks like this:

Which is an improvement over the pyramid but still has recommendations that don’t make sense for a lot of people, like dairy for its calcium content (you can get plenty of calcium from cruciferous greens, nuts, and lots of other ingredients). Or the over-emphasis on lean meats, which from my observations, leads people to eat more sugary sauces and thus, more empty calories. Nutritionists don’t have an intuitive understanding of the emotional dimensions of how people eat because they don’t have to, they’re armchair chefs.

This essay isn’t about what the general public should and shouldn’t eat and which vaccines and pills to take and avoid. The point is, government and medical directives are always problematic. Don’t eat cheese and drink milk if you’re lactose intolerant. Listen to the sound of your your stomach and diarrhea, not to someone who doesn’t know you as an individual. Trust your intuition when it comes to your health. Whether or not taking a vaccine is a good option depends on individual circumstances.

What We Learn from the History of Medicine and Science Reform

First, medical advice is often wrong. During the Spanish pandemic of 1917-1918, doctors told people to smoke cigarettes because they thought it would help prevent infection. How many of you know someone who was prescribed meds (especially for depression and anxiety) and that didn’t turn out well? How did the opioid epidemic begin?

Second, great medical doctors, the ones who challenged the status quo, were at first mocked and dismissed as frauds. Take English physician John Snow, (15 March 1813 – 16 June 1858), a leader in the development of anesthesia and the improvement of medical hygiene. His findings led to advances in sanitation and cleaner water supplies which significantly reduced infection and mortality rates of diseases such as cholera.

There was a cholera outbreak in 1854. Snow was a skeptic of the then-dominant theory that diseases such as cholera and were caused by “bad air”.  Snow did on the ground research that few scientists bother to do — asking residents about their everyday lives — and correctly traced the outbreak to a well contaminated with feces. Still, after the epidemic subsided, government officials rejected Snow’s theory because the public was uncomfortable with the idea that disease can be transmitted from shit to mouth because back then, shit was everywhere.

It wasn’t until 1866 that one of Snow’s chief opponents realized the validity of his diagnosis while investigating another outbreak of cholera and issued immediate orders that unboiled water was not to be drunk.

Joseph Lister (5 April 1827 – 10 February 1912) was roundly honored in later life for his contributions to medicine. But his ideas about the transmission of infection and the use of antiseptics were widely criticized early in his career. In 1869, at the meetings of the British Association at Leeds, Lister’s ideas were mocked; and again, in 1873, the highly regarded and still in publication medical journal, The Lancet, warned the entire medical profession against his theories.

The Truth has always started as “fake news.”

Japan and Vaccines, What We can Learn

Here’s an article you can find on NIH’s Pubmed, A Review of Factors Affecting Vaccine Preventable Disease in Japan, published in peer reviewed journal Hawaii Journal of Publish Health (2014 Dec; 73(12): 376–381). It’s about why Japan is healthier than the US despite not vaccinating its citizens anywhere as much as the US does. Actually no, it’s about how American pharmaceutical companies can better infiltrate into the Japanese healthcare system. Excerpts from the article:

Japan ranks among the world leaders in the health of its citizens. The Japanese have the longest life expectancy and number of years lived in full health.¹ Japan is among the leaders in the developed world in low obesity rates and low infant and cardiovascular disease mortality.^2–4 The World Health Organization (WHO) ranked Japan first in overall health goal attainment among 191 countries in its most recent rankings in 2000.⁵

So Japs are the healthiest in the world. Yet the authors are confused as to why that’s the case because Japs don’t take as many vaccines as their peers do:

In stark contrast to these positive health indicators, Japan is also well known as a country with persistently high rates of vaccine preventable diseases (VPD) such as hepatitis B, measles, rubella, mumps, and varicella.^6–8 The 2012–2013 rubella outbreak in Japan caused about 15,000 cases of rubella and 43 cases of congenital rubella syndrome.⁹ In June 2013, the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) released an advisory against travel to Japan for expectant mothers who are not rubella-immune because of the risk of congenital rubella.

How can Japan have such a strong health record despite higher rates of preventable diseases? Unfortunately, the authors are so biased that they don’t consider why the Japanese are the healthiest yet get infected by preventable diseases at significant numbers. The way the authors phrase their questions and conclusions shows that they’re biased toward believing that vaccines are unequivocally good for public health. For instance, here’s how they phrase the data they collected about Japanese attitudes and government policies toward vaccination:

While no federal vaccination laws exist in the United States, all 50 states require certain vaccinations prior to the entry of children into public schools. However, there is no domestic legislation to enforce vaccination for children entering school in Japan. 

The authors point out that UNLIKE the US, Japan doesn’t force vaccination on its children. What’s the point of pointing this out? Read on about what some Japanese mothers think about vaccines:

In one study 33% of mothers reported an intent to fully vaccinate their children with 50% reporting a desire to vaccinate only for specific vaccines.⁵⁴ In another study of parents who did not choose voluntary vaccinations, 39% worried about side effects, and 12.9% doubted the vaccine’s positive effects.³³ Ten percent were motivated to acquire natural resistance to some voluntary vaccine pathogens…

In Japan, vaccination is a decision made by families, not the government. The authors, however, think Japanese mothers and health care providers are ignorant and need American education about medicine so they can improve public health. More condescending bullshit:

Health professionals may also have misperceptions of vaccines.⁵⁵ Japanese medical providers do not always have a basic knowledge of vaccines such as the adverse effects, indication of vaccination, interval, or possibility of giving multiple vaccines on the same day.⁴⁶ A qualitative study of Japanese resident physicians demonstrated low personal vaccination rates for measles and themes of lack of awareness of disease severity and fear of adverse effects

The authors make the conclusion that Japanese physicians are ignorant, that’s why they don’t get vaccinated. Even though earlier in the article, the authors tell you why the Japanese aren’t gung ho about vaccines.

In addition to the pertussis and MMR events, the Japanese government was sued several times in the 1980s and 1990s due to vaccine adverse events.¹⁹ Pressure by citizens and medical professionals led to the 1994 modification of the Preventive Immunization Law to make vaccination an individual responsibility instead of a mandatory act.¹⁷ Mass vaccination in regional Public Health Centers was replaced by vaccination by private physicians.

Put simply, the Japs found that sometimes the vaccine is more dangerous than the disease it’s supposed to eradicate. So the Japs were slow to introduce new vaccines, which the authors, whom I want to bitch slap for being morons, insist is a bad policy for Japan.

After the discontinuation of MMR and the change in the Preventive Immunization Law, new vaccines were introduced in Japan at much slower rates than in other developed countries. Between 1993 and 2007 there was a “vaccine gap”, and only two new vaccines were brought to the Japanese market (hepatitis A and a combination measles and rubella vaccine).¹⁹ In contrast, 17 new vaccines were introduced over the same time frame in the United States.¹⁹

Other precautions the Japanese have taken:

When two infants died within 24 hours of receiving DTwP in the winter of 1974–1975, the government suspended licensure of DTwP. Licensure was reinstated two months later with a change in the minimum recommended age from 3 months to 2 years as a precaution.

Which seems like a reasonable response. Whereas when kids die from a vaccine in the US, the parents get paid off to shut the fuck up (or else!) and it’s full speed ahead.

Even though Japan ranks number 1 in the world for health, the authors are arrogant enough to insist that the Japs are mismanaging their health care system and are ignorant about vaccines? The data presented in this article could’ve been used to question how the US mismanages its health care system and use of vaccines. Like what’s more dangerous, the vaccine or the infection, and how many vaccines is too much? How are these not legitimate concerns? The authors blew it, they could’ve asked what Americans can learn from Japan — the healthiest people in the world — about healthcare and vaccines. Instead, it’s yet another narcissistic call on how Americans can help others become more American. More patronizing bullshit (masquerading as cultural fucking sensitivity!):

Finally, Japanese parents may have attitudes towards vaccination that differ from many American parents, and providers should be prepared to address potential barriers to vaccination with cultural sensitivity.

But no “cultural sensitivity” for Americans who share similar concerns about vaccines as many in Japan do, they’re uneducated stupid rednecks who deserve eternity in a Covid infected fake-news Hell.

Are Vaccines Dangerous?

Is there controlled longitudinal safety data comparing vaccinated and unvaccinated groups that proves conclusively that vaccination is not associated with auto immune disorders, cancer, autism, depression, anxiety, chronic gastrointestinal issues, dementia, etc.? Please?

Who is Dr. Anthony Fauci?

According to Nobel Laureate Kary Mullis (1993, Medicine), Dr. Fauci is a fraud.

For those who can’t watch it:

“What is it about humanity that it wants to go to the all detail to stop and listen. Guys like Fauci get up there and start talking, and he doesn’t know anything really about anything, and I’d say that to his face. Nothing.

The man thinks you can take a blood sample and stick it in an electron microscope and if it’s got a virus in there, you will know it. He doesn’t understand electron microscopy and he doesn’t understand medicine. He should not be in a position like he’s in.

Most of those guys up there on the top are just total administrative people and they don’t know anything about what’s going on with the bottom. You know, those guys have got an agenda, which is not what we would like them to have, being that we pay for them to take care of our health in some way.

They’ve got a personal kind of agenda. They make up their own rules as they go. They change them when they want to and a smugly like Tony Fauci does not mind going on television in front of the people, face out, and lie directly into the camera.

You can’t expect the sheep to really respect the best and the brightest. They don’t know the difference, really. I mean, I like humans, don’t get me wrong. But basically, there is a vast, vast majority of them do not possess the ability to judge who is and who isn’t really a good scientist.”

Postscript

What are you more bothered by, my use of a racial slur or the patronizing language used by the authors that’s passed off as “cultural sensitivity”?