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Quotes about Medical Ethics from the world's top natural health / natural living authors

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"At a 2002 faculty medical ethics seminar at Harvard Medical School, I had the opportunity to ask Dr. Janet Woodcock, Director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, why the FDA had not intervened in JAMA's publication of the Celebrex study. I pointed out that the FDA was aware that publication of the CLASS article in JAMA would lead to greatly increased use of Celebrex under false pretenses. Dr. Woodcock said the FDA could not "constrain communication" in a scientific journal, and that this was "a First Amendment right of commercial speech issue." Then Dr." - John Abramson, Overdosed America: The Broken Promise of American Medicine (P.S.) (Get the book.)

"Although a discussion of medical ethics falls outside the scope of this book-certainly whole books have been written on the topic by experts in the field—it's important to consider the risks of preventive testing and treatments. For example, many of the drugs prescribed as preventive medicine come with dangerous side effects." - Donna Jackson Nakazawa, The Autoimmune Epidemic (Get the book.)

"The following quote, from an article published in 1998 in a journal of medical ethics, makes the point plainly: Dr. Miracle misperceives his role as a physician by viewing himself as the sole source of healing. His actions do not engage the patient, either diagnostically or therapeutically, as a partner in the effort to restore Mr. Misery's ability to live his life as he chooses. Dr. Miracle apparently regards his role as that of a conjurer or shaman whose tools and methods require mystery for their effect. Note that Dr." - Anne Harrington, The Cure Within: A History of Mind-Body Medicine (Get the book.)

"In this thinking, the cardiologist has cast aside scientific medicine and medical ethics, and has become an unlikely pawn of the patient. Ultimately, as we have claimed previously, such explanations improperly blame the patient for the doctor's inadequacies. Second, cardiologists simply do not believe the results of statistical studies. What they see from their own patients is what forms their conclusions. Moreover, stenting does relieve symptoms. Ergo, it works. Ergo, we might say, the doctor eschews systematic data for individual and uncontrolled (and perhaps self-serving) observation." - Gerald E. Markle and Frances B. McCrea, What If Medicine Disappeared? (Get the book.)

"To find out more about the work of these committees and explore other doctor-patient ethical issues, we spoke with Abraham Verghese, MD, a preeminent figure in medical ethics and head of the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio's humanities and ethics curriculum. •Who is on a hospital's medical ethics committee, and what can they do for patients and families? Membership varies from place to place, but it's not only doctors. There also may be a lawyer, a chaplain, a nurse and a nonmedical professional from the community." - Bottom Line Health, Bottom Line's Health Breakthroughs 2007 (Get the book.)

"Among its goals, ESM advocates the emphasis of wellness in medical practice, the choice of ESM treatments as a first resort, awareness of the environmental impact of medicine, recognition of the importance of ecological health in medical ethics, and awareness of the psychological and cultural benefits of sustainable medicine. The practice of sustainable medical care necessitates fundamental changes in the delivery of medicine." - Dawson Church, The Genie in Your Genes: Epigenetic Medicine and the New Biology of Intention (Get the book.) "In the late 1970s, I was acquainted with an eccentric old doctor, Henry Wasserman, a professor at New York University whose area of interest was medical ethics. He was horrified at what he discovered in his 3. Scaled Int erventions I'd prefer alternative medicine.' profession. The most passionate thing he ever said to me in his raspy, cynical, Yiddish-accented voice was, "I have learned enough in this job to give you one piece of solid advice: Never go near a hospital unless you are near the point of death." - Dawson Church, The Genie in Your Genes: Epigenetic Medicine and the New Biology of Intention (Get the book.)

"Moreover, a Pfizer infectious disease specialist had repeatedly told Pfizer management that the company was violating international law and medical ethics standards. He was subsequently dismissed and later settled with the company, according to other newspaper reports. Clearly, the fact that Pfizer was accused of backdating one letter and that I might have received another one was significant. And so was the fact that they had fired one alleged whistleblower already." - Peter Rost, The Whistleblower: Confessions of a Healthcare Hitman (Get the book.)

"So much for medical ethics at all levels of research. The basis for all medical science is the foundation built during education. Dr. Charles B. Nemeroff, Emory University, probably holds some sort of record for conflicts of interest.16 Besides receiving funds for academic research, he serves as consultant, owns stock in, and/or is a member of the speaker's bureau for virtually every pharmaceutical company that manufactures drugs for treating mental illness. As a member of the speaker's bureau, he gives talks to other physicians on behalf of the companies who "employ" him." - Brent Hoadley, Ph.D., Too Profitable to Cure (Get the book.)

"The trial by Tuomilehto et al. (1999) is an example using calcium channel blockers to the advantage of older patients with diabetes and systolic hypertension. Adler et al. (2000) published the observational data from the ukpds cohort demonstrating the synergy of hazards when type 2 diabetic patients are hypertensive. The demonstration that tight blood-pressure control benefits the ukpds diabetic patients was a secondary analysis (uk Prospective Diabetes Study Group 1998b)." - Nortin M. Hadler MD, Worried Sick: A Prescription for Health in an Overtreated America (Get the book.)

"Arthur Caplan, chair of the department of medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine tells us that, "Any time a child reads a little more slowly, we're talking learning disability and administering Ritalin, or any time a kid acts up a bit, instead of giving him detention, we're drugging him.. .and I've never met a drug yet, including aspirin, that didn't have some side effects." - Fred A. Baughman, Jr., M.D. and Craig Hovey, The ADHD Fraud: How Psychiatry Makes "Patients" of Normal Children (Get the book.)

"That shouldn't come as too big a surprise. medical ethics are usually the opposite of traditional ethics. For instance, if you're in the operating room and somebody finds a sponge in the belly left from a previous operation, traditional ethics would make sure that somebody in the family found out about it. medical ethics tells you to keep your mouth shut about it. The surgeon will say, "I don't want anybody to know about this," and if the nurse tells the family, she'll be out of a job. medical ethics also waffles on the point of stopping at the scene of an accident." - Robert Mendelsohn, Confessions of a Medical Heretic (Get the book.)

"Special training isn't required, but all of these participants will have expressed an interest in medical ethics and patients' rights. At most large hospitals, one member will carry a beeper, on a rotating basis, in case there's a need for an ethics consultation. Sometimes hospital staffers themselves want to consult the ethics committee—for example, if a recommendation by the hospital's oncology team to aggressively treat an end-stage cancer patient doesn't sit well with the patient's primary care team." - Bottom Line Health, Bottom Line's Health Breakthroughs 2007 (Get the book.)

"Stelfax and colleagues, "Conflict of Interest in the Debate over Calcium Channel Antagonists" (1998), discuss the calcium channel blocker stain on medical ethics. The trial by Tuomilehto and colleagues, "Effects of Calcium-Channel Blockade" (lggg), is an example using calcium channel blockers to the advantage of older patients with diabetes and systolic hypertension." - Nortin M. Hadler, The Last Well Person: How to Stay Well Despite the Health-Care System (Get the book.)

"Not surprisingly, the modern medical expert, especially if he is also an expert on philosophy and medical ethics, is contemptuous of the gold standard of disease, or indeed of any standard of it. Rejecting the desirability of a boundary between disease and nondisease has become the very hallmark of the contemporary "progressive" medical philosopher. Germund Hesslow, professor of neuroscience and associate professor of philosophy at Lund University in Sweden, asks, "Do we need a concept of disease?" - Thomas Szasz, The Medicalization of Everyday Life: Selected Essays (Get the book.) "In 1993, while ostensibly trying to keep his wife Terri alive, Michael Schiavo converts her engagement ring and wedding band into a ring for himself; in June 2005, after Terri is cremated and her ashes are buried, he defines the date of her death as February 25, 1990, and uses her gravestone as a placard for congratulating himself on his self-proclaimed moral fidelity to her; and now, while continuing to loudly disclaim interest in publicity, he lectures on medical ethics." - Thomas Szasz, The Medicalization of Everyday Life: Selected Essays (Get the book.) "On September 24, 2005, he traveled to the Twin Cities to speak at a conference on medical ethics honoring Dr. Ronald Cran-ford, a Minneapolis neurologist who served as his medical advisor during the debacle. Michael declared, "I never, in my entire life, thought I would be thrown into such a national debate. . . . All I wanted to do was carry out my wife's wishes. . . . Terri didn't die an awful death,... As she died, I laid a red rose in her hand and said goodbye."21 His address was met by a standing ovation from the more than 200 people in attendance." - Thomas Szasz, The Medicalization of Everyday Life: Selected Essays (Get the book.) "I would add that of all the bunk in America, our champion slogans are about drugs and medical ethics: "Just say no to drugs," "the sanctity of life," "pro-choice," "the right to life," "the right to die," "the right to treatment," "the right to reject treatment"—slogans all, some contradicting others and yet all coexisting comfortably in mindless harmony. If the right to autonomy—to our bodies, minds, and selves—means anything, it means a right to suicide. And if pro-choice means anything, it must mean the right to use or abstain from using any particular drug." - Thomas Szasz, The Medicalization of Everyday Life: Selected Essays (Get the book.)

"Numerous classes of substances are banned, including hGH, because they "contravene the fundamental principles of Olympianism and sports and medical ethics" (IOC, 2000: article 1). Athletes have long sought substances that could improve their performances. Ergogenic, or performance-enhancing, aids have a long history. " - Peter Conrad, The Medicalization of Society: On the Transformation of Human Conditions into Treatable Disorders (Get the book.)

"By not railing against the corruption of medical ethics, and by not instituting regulations within the profession to address such issues, medical schools can be viewed as condoning or even endorsing such behavior. The expansion of sales for therapeutic treatment of common diseases is the primary goal of pharmaceutical corporations. Maintaining and expanding disease is a precondition for the growth of the pharmaceutical investment industry. Prevention and cure of diseases decreases profitability and are to be avoided and even obstructed." - Brent Hoadley, Ph.D., Too Profitable to Cure (Get the book.)

"The Science and Development Network works to build regional networks of individuals and organizations, and maintains extensive dossiers (available free on the site) on issues ranging from medical ethics and malaria to indigenous knowledge. The Ingenuity Gap: Facing the Economic, Environmental, and Other Challenges of an Increasingly Complex and Unpredictable World by Thomas Homer-Dixon (Knopf, 2000) In a hard-pressed world, what distinguishes people who thrive from people who fail? Thomas Homer-Dixon would answer in a single word: ingenuity." - Alex Steffen, Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century (Get the book.)

"Nearly all schools have courses in medical ethics, but conflict of interest is not a consistent part of these curricula. Needless to say, the schools may find proscription of gifts and meals difficult to justify if their faculty are heavily involved with industry themselves. Students should be encouraged not to take gifts or interact with drug salesmen. House staff should pay for meals themselves rather than be obligated to drug salesmen and their companies. House officers must be encouraged not to meet with drug salesmen outside their institutions." - Jerome P. Kassirer, On the Take: How Medicine's Complicity with Big Business Can Endanger Your Health (Get the book.)

"And yet, medical ethics clearly recognizes the right of every person to determine what medical treatments will be used on his body. This is a fundamental principle of medical ethics. Not only is the physician rarely trained to understand the inner-choice process of a patient but the cancer patient himself is rarely trained to give his inner inclinations and feelings about treatment serious attention." - Michael Lerner, Choices in Healing: Integrating the Best of Conventional and Complementary Approaches to Cancer (Get the book.)

"A few years ago, a formal complaint was lodged by Ontario doctors with their licensing authority, the College of Physicians and Surgeons, objecting to this obvious lack of medical ethics when a doctor actively works against a trusting patient's interests." - Helke Ferrie, Dispatches From the War Zone of Environmental Health (Get the book.)

"The surgeon will say, "I don't want anybody to know about this," and if the nurse tells the family, she'll be out of a job. medical ethics also waffles on the point of stopping at the scene of an accident. If a doctor passes the scene of an accident, traditional ethics tells him to stop and try to save a life. medical ethics tells him first to find out if the state has a Good Samaritan law. The ethics of Modern Medicine are different from traditional religious ethics as well as from traditional social ethics." - Robert Mendelsohn, Confessions of a Medical Heretic (Get the book.) "For instance, if you're in the operating room and somebody finds a sponge in the belly left from a previous operation, traditional ethics would make sure that somebody in the family found out about it. medical ethics tells you to keep your mouth shut about it. The surgeon will say, "I don't want anybody to know about this," and if the nurse tells the family, she'll be out of a job. medical ethics also waffles on the point of stopping at the scene of an accident. If a doctor passes the scene of an accident, traditional ethics tells him to stop and try to save a life." - Robert Mendelsohn, Confessions of a Medical Heretic (Get the book.)

"Some in government, like former Colorado Governor Richard Lamm, argue that medical ethics, as commonly structured and interpreted, is bad public policy. If we spend staggering amounts of resources to extend one person's life by a week, we have less with which to provide prenatal care, cover the uninsured, or improve schools and police services. These things might offer more good to more people. Lamm argues that doctors refuse to consider diminishing returns when they look at the multitude of things we can do with modern medicine." - Richard A. Deyo M.D. M.P.H., Donald L. Patrick, Hope or Hype: The Obsession with Medical Advances and the High Cost of False Promises (Get the book.) "In 1995, she became the first woman to be named professor in Baylor University's Department of Medicine, and she also became professor of medical ethics. At one time, she served as health policy adviser to Senator Robert Dole, and she was appointed by then Governor George W. Bush to several state medical boards and councils. Most of her career has been in Houston, and she still has a small ranch outside the city. For a time during the Bush presidency, she was director of research for the entire VA medical system, and she moved to the nation's capital." - Richard A. Deyo M.D. M.P.H., Donald L. Patrick, Hope or Hype: The Obsession with Medical Advances and the High Cost of False Promises (Get the book.)

"The new medical ethics insists, though patients are free to ask for and follow their doctors' advice, the final decision as to what one does with one's own body ultimately rests with each individual. To be able to make such decisions, or at least be involved in the discussion, people need to know the truth about their disease, its possible outcomes, and the full range of medical options available. This is the basis for the rise of the growing "patient's rights" movement. The new approach to medical ethics serves further to make the average physician think negatively about the idea of placebo." - Howard Brody, Daralyn Brody, The Placebo Response: How You Can Release the Body's Inner Pharmacy for Better Health (Get the book.)

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