More Screenings and New Drugs: The Deck is Stacked Against You

Medical screenings continue unabated, with new screenings on the horizon. What the public does not know is that medical screenings are big business. The money raked in from screenings benefits a long list of medical businesses. The amount of money to be made has been premeasured, almost to the penny, by these businesses. It is a game with a predetermined outcome where everyone but the patient wins because there is just about zero patient benefit statistically from any and all types of medical screening. And the number of people injured, maimed, and killed as a result of screenings is startling. You just will never hear about it. As a scientist, I know and understand that the folks inventing and running these games are laughing at the public.

This just can’t be true, right? Wrong. Take the case of John English. His wife saw an ad by a large hospital purporting that 95% of men diagnosed early with localized prostate cancer are cured (the first lie). They add that because of this “fact,” prostate cancer screening saves lives (the second lie). The ad noted that their hospital was sponsoring free prostate screenings at the local mall as part of Prostate Cancer Awareness Week.

Sounds great, altruistic, and well meaning.

They don’t say that the hospital has already figured out in advance what it will cost them for the tests, versus how much money they rake in. They know exactly the percentage of men that will test positive, how many men have Medicare or other insurance, and how many men will report to their hospital to find out why they tested positive. They know how many will have prostate cancer, how many will get a radical prostatectomy, radiation therapy, hormones, and other drug therapies at their hospital. They know the percentage that will be rendered incontinent from their treatment, and then the percentage of these patients that will be so maimed they need an implanted artificial urethral sphincter (a urine bag). They know exactly the percentage that will become totally impotent from the surgery and how many of these patients will demand further drug treatment, penile implants, and more from their hospital. They know the percentage that will suffer even worse damage from surgery and/or radiation, requiring humiliating, life- changing, expensive procedures from the hospital. They know how many men will suffer from stress, anxiety, and depression from all this, requiring more treatment from the hospital. And they even know the percentage of men that will not be cured and will suffer a return of their “95% curable” cancer, starting yet another cascade of expensive medical treatments from their hospital. Can’t be true? Back to John English…

Downward Medical Spiral

John’s wife hounded him to have a free prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test, so he did. He found out he had a positive PSA test of 4.3. He became a nervous wreck and could not wait to get to the hospital to find out if he had cancer. He had 20 painful biopsy punches taken and was sent home for another sleepless week awaiting his results. Turns out that he had cancer in half of his prostate. He was told it was small and non-aggressive – giving him the best odds of a total cure. All he wanted was to “get it out”. He had no idea what it all meant.

He had a radical prostatectomy and the pathology report on his prostate tissue showed that he did have a very small, slow-growing cancer. Based on what we know, it would not have threatened his life. After surgery, John was incontinent and soon found that he would never recover his bladder function. He started his new life living in adult diapers. He and his wife could no longer have sex, and he starting exploring a penile implant after Viagra failed to help.

But before that, on a follow-up test, he found that his PSA was once again rising. That could not be because the surgeon assured him that “we got it all” (another lie). His stress and anxiety levels were now through the roof. It was suggested that possibly a piece of cancerous prostate was left behind and that radiation would clean up any remnants of cancer (another lie). He could not wait to get to a radiation Oncologist for treatment so he could put all this behind him.

The dangers of radiation and the fact that it is not always successful were explained to him. Nonetheless, he anxiously waited for the next opening to have weekly radiation “shotgun blasts” to his pelvis to finally rid him of cancer. One month into radiation, John noticed blood in his stool and severe burning on urination. His anxiety and fear were now near hysteric level. He was prescribed antibiotics for a potential urinary tract infection and steroid cream to put in his rectum.

A few weeks later John discovered that fecal material was coming out in his urine. The radiation had burned a hole (fistula) through his rectum and bladder. He was scheduled for surgery and a colostomy was performed. In the end his colon was removed and he got a colostomy bag on his side. The urinary burning worsened, and he was then scheduled for surgery to remove his bladder and give him a bladder bag just like his bowel bag. But he never made it to that surgery. Instead he was taken back to the hospital with a severe bladder infection that could not be controlled. It led to sepsis (blood poisoning), and the whole thing was over for John. On the third day in the hospital John died, but his death will never make it to American cancer statistics. The death certificate says that he died of a urinary tract infection. In fact, he died from a free medical screening that he never needed, which led to treatment for cancer that likewise was never needed because John’s cancer would never have caused a problem. In the end, John was killed by the medical gold standard treatment – he was killed by the cure. He was 74 years old.

 

You and I paid hundreds of thousands of dollars (Medicare) to kill John. The hospital’s statistics on how much money can be made from medical screenings were right on the money. And John’s death, along with hundreds of thousands of others, will never show up in cancer statistics. Instead, the medical profession will roll out yet another “expert” to trumpet to the media and you that thanks to early detection and advances in medical technology, prostate cancer deaths are decreasing. John’s wife, once apprised of the real truth was close to suicidal. After all, it was upon her demand that John got screened – to potentially save his life.

New Drugs

Getting caught up in the fanfare of “new drugs” can be equally deadly. Not too long ago drugs known as red blood cell-sparing drugs like Aranesp” and Procrit” were introduced to the world of cancer with all the hoopla of a second coming. These drugs would spare or increase red blood cells and help patients avoid deadly anemia caused by chemotherapy poisoning, thus avoiding the necessary transfusions as they progressed through their cancer and chemotherapy treatments.

The problem was that if any cancer remained in the body after surgery (which is almost 100% of the time), those cancer cells and tumors would be stimulated by sparing blood cells, which would actually cause earlier deaths in patients. Nonetheless, even after these facts were exposed, the drugs stayed on the market and were routinely used by oncologists. And why not, they made big money. It would not be unusual for the total cancer treatment bill for one patient to be padded by an additional $500,000, extracted primarily from you and me through Medicare and higher insurance costs. Between 1996 and 2009, when the FDA finally put a damper on this insanity, it is estimated that these drugs raked in close to $50 billion!

This is the perfect example of everything that is wrong with health care. As Dr. Otis Brawley states in his new book, “It’s now safe to say that most of this money was spent on drugs that were prescribed for the wrong reasons and under false, manufactured pretenses. These drugs were not used to cure disease or make patients feel better. They were used to make money for doctors and pharmaceutical companies at the expense of patients, insurance companies, and taxpayers. The technical term for this is overtreatment.”!

To avoid this kind of disaster you have to be educated. My statement, “New drugs, cheaper drugs, free drugs – who cares?” rings so true today. What is needed is fundamental change. And when it comes to new drugs, follow my advice and that of Sidney Wolfe, MD, author of Worst Pills, Best Pills. We say: Do not take any new drug for at least seven years after it is on the market. Doing this alone would eliminate tens of thousands of deaths and save billions of dollars.

What to Do?

Is there any hope? Despite the fact that there are thousands of smart, well-meaning, altruistic, and skilled physicians out there, there is no hope in the health care system as it runs today. Too many people who make the decisions suffer from inflated egos, arrogance, greed, and maniacal self-confidence. These people seek power, money, and prestige, and they have no qualms about using deceit and habitual lying to get them. This leads to the dozens and dozens of medical interventions (such as screenings) that continue for years and years, even after they are ultimately found to be useless, and worse – harmful.

But you can avoid all this. It is not too hard, and almost free. When you do get sick, make sure to use natural treatments to get better. See your doctor but reserve drugs and surgery as treatments of last resort. Understand that health screenings come with a high risk. Avoid all new prescription drugs for at least seven years. Look up the side effects of all drugs prescribed for you in a drug book. This will help you avoid a prescription for another drug to treat side effects from the first drug. Be wary of drug combinations – no medical scientist on earth can comprehend the myriad of interactions between just three prescription drugs in your body.

And when it comes to cancer, remember all these things and more. Never believe what only one physician tells you. Never believe in simple “miracle cures”. Cancer is almost always systemic (throughout your body) when it is first discovered. Never believe that drugs, radiation, or surgery can cure cancer. These can sometimes help, but the only thing that cures cancer is your own immune system. Always work on strengthening your immune system for any form of cancer whatsoever.

I am personally very positive on where health care will go in America. There are just too many great doctors out there. And millions of Americans are waking up and using alternative health care. Last year, prescription drug sales were flat – as in no increase and a I% drop in filled prescriptions! This is attributed to seniors reducing their use of medications (hooray) and restrained spending due to the recession. I believe the main cause of this positive trend is that Americans are waking up!

NOTES

1 Brawley, O. W., MD, How We Do Harm, St. Martin’s Press, 2012.

Health Alert, Vol. 29, Issue 8