On April 8, 1966, Time Magazine caused a national commotion when the issue’s cover was emblazoned with the question, “Is God Dead?” The Time article was a measured consideration of how society was adapting to the diminishing role of religion in an age of stunning scientific advances. The writer posited that people would no longer believe things out of received doctrine, but faith would steadily succumb to the scientific method as mankind unraveled the truths of the physical world at the expense of the myths of the metaphysical. The medical advances of vaccination and antibiotics trumping infectious curable diseases, open-heart surgery, chemotherapy for cancer, renal dialysis and intensive care units moved lock-step with astronauts walking in space. Physicians historically had respect and power because they could make diagnoses, which determined prognoses. Now, doctors could use sophisticated therapeutics to alter patient outcomes.
Fast forward to today’s omnipresent internet search era. In the unveiled world of cyberspace, our patients can create their own “medical reality”, validating their preconceptions, prejudices, hopes and fears. The safety of vaccination, GMO crops, fluoridation, and cell phone waves are as suspect as clinically proven best practices, any kind of invasive procedure or the principles of pharmacological effect. Doctors and big pharmaceutical companies are driven by greed, not patient interest, and presenting these people with the best available scientifically-generated medical information is of no avail. These individuals categorically reject ideas they wrongly consider harmful.
I understand that patients are not laboratory experiments. There is an art to the practice of medicine, but art without science is quackery. Alternative medicine and holistic approaches are legitimate if proven effective. But homeopathic means not only is there so little drug that side-effects are avoided, but there is also so little drug that pharmacological benefit is impossible. The major pharmaceutical companies purportedly hide data about drug safety, but are Indian and Chinese unregulated formularies of innumerable herbal supplements unquestionably safe, pure and effective?
By Norman Silverman, MD, with Ryan McKennon, DO and Ren Carlton