NaturalPedia > Medical Technology

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

 Email this page to a friend   |  Click here for FREE email alerts

page 1 of 2 | Next ->

"The absence of both of these constraints on the growth of medical technology allows the U.S. health care system to be uniquely shaped by financial incentives. Four features are shared by the medical services that are most vulnerable to overuse because of this supply-side push. First, supply-sensitive services must be covered by insurance. When insurance coverage shields patients from the real cost of their care, they are unlikely to question whether the health value of a test or procedure justifies its cost." - John Abramson, Overdosed America: The Broken Promise of American Medicine (P.S.) (Get the book.)

"The Center for Public Integrity finds that "more than 90 percent of the total" spent on lobbying by pharmaceutical interests in 2007 came from "40 companies and three trade groups: the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the Biotechnology Industry Organization, and the Advanced medical technology Association." The industry's success rate in blocking legislation against its interests and in securing passage of legislation in its favor is unparalleled." - Jonathan W. Emord, The Rise of Tyranny (Get the book.)

"In time, he managed to convince the Russian Ministry of Health of the importance of his invention to medical technology, diagnosis, and treatment. His equipment was initially employed to predict certain clinical situations, such as the progress of recovery of people after surgery.27 It soon became widely used in Russia as a diagnostic tool for many illnesses, including cancer and stress,28 and was even used to assess athletic potential—to predict the psychophysical reserves in athletes training for the Olympics and the likelihood of victory or exhaustion from overtraining." - Lynne McTaggart, The Intention Experiment: Using Your Thoughts to Change Your Life and the World (Get the book.)

"Yet the view that all new medical technology is worth the price is often at odds with the evidence—and no more so than in the field of imaging. Payments for physician services by Medicare and Medicaid rose 31 percent between 1999 and 2004. During that same period, payments for imaging services grew more than 60 percent, twice as fast, largely because physicians ordered more images per patient and more expensive images. Payments for MRI, for example, grew 140 percent; CT payments went up 1 12 percent." - Shannon Brownlee, Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine Is Making Us Sicker and Poorer (Get the book.) "In fact, maybe the real problem with prescription drugs, and indeed with medical technology in general, is not so much that they cost too much or that they're too dangerous or that they don't always work the way they're supposed to. Maybe the real problem is there's too little of the right kind of information. Drug reps Doctors have three main sources of information about medical products: sales representatives, other doctors, and medical journals. All three of those sources provide some good data, and a lot of misinformation." - Shannon Brownlee, Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine Is Making Us Sicker and Poorer (Get the book.) "These days, utilization rates of all kinds of imaging tests—MRIs, ultrasounds, PETs—are going up faster than those of any other medical technology. The use of images is rising in lockstep with the supply of increasingly sophisticated imaging machines—without much evidence that they are helping patients. The only imaging test whose rate of use is going down is the lowly X-ray. The next case on the screen is a chest X-ray of a forty-eight-year-old man with a history of an abdominal aortic aneurysm. In other words, he has a weak spot in the wall of his aorta." - Shannon Brownlee, Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine Is Making Us Sicker and Poorer (Get the book.)

"In the wise book, Lives of a Cell, Lewis Thomas—dean of medical schools at Yale and New York University and, at the time of his death, CEO of the Sloan-Kettering Institute—claimed that most medical technology is "so effective that it seems to attract the least public notice; it has come to be taken for granted."32 Though in this book we argue the opposite, there is surely some truth to Thomas' statement. For example, approximately 38,000 units of blood are transfused daily." - Gerald E. Markle and Frances B. McCrea, What If Medicine Disappeared? (Get the book.)

"Medicare and Medicaid agreed to Eli Lilly's request to cover half of the cost of Xigris as a new medical technology, but this still leaves hospitals paying about $3400 for each patient treated. With sales lagging so far behind projections, Eli Lilly did the only reasonable thing: it fired the public relations firm that had been in charge of the Xigris account and looked for a new one that could do a better job. According to the Wall Street Journal, the winning proposal was titled "The Ethics, the Urgency, and the Potential." - John Abramson, Overdosed America: The Broken Promise of American Medicine (P.S.) (Get the book.)

"One would expect that, with its ranking in medical technology near the top of all nations, the U.S. would place among the best in the health of its citizens. Unfortunately, this is not the case. According to the jama article, the U.S. ranked on average, from seventh to thirteenth among nations of the world for 16 health indicators, ranging from birth problems through to life expectancy. The year 2000 World Health Organization report ranked the U.S. twenty-fourth in health-expectancy among nations of the world despite it being the most prosperous." - Ron Garner, Conscious Health: A Complete Guide to Wellness Through Natural Means (Get the book.) "By the time medical technology can identify its presence, the disease condition is well advanced. Our mind is where we should begin the process of making changes in our lives. We must be willing to view life and ourselves in new ways to recover from a disease process. This takes courage. A sincere desire for change allows this to happen." - Ron Garner, Conscious Health: A Complete Guide to Wellness Through Natural Means (Get the book.)

"Now, this isn't to say that there's nothing good coming out of material science, chemistry or medical technology. There are important advances, and I in no way mean to minimize those. For example, the development of plastics, ceramics and other materials is astounding, and we do derive tremendous benefits from those breakthroughs in materials. We also have impressive technology in terms of diagnosis and imaging of the human body. CAT scans, MRIs, laboratory blood analysis; these are important pieces of modern medical technology." - Mike Adams, Spam Filters for Your Brain (Get the book.)

"The end of one set of epidemics and the beginning of the other was not a coincidence. The medical technology that defeated the old epidemics was created by America's burgeoning industrialism, and this industrialism also created the ubiquitously toxic environment that has indirectly triggered the new epidemics. Furthermore, the immunizations that were directly responsible for ending the old epidemics were also directly responsible for helping to create the new ones." - Kenneth Bock, Healing the New Childhood Epidemics: Autism, ADHD, Asthma, and Allergies: The Groundbreaking Program for the 4-A Disorders (Get the book.)

"They argue that medical technology like the LightSpeedVCT may be expensive in the short run, but it would be foolish to impede the flow of such devices into the marketplace, because they improve the practice of medicine. (Besides, new devices and drugs means new jobs for people in the device industry and health care, and new jobs are good for the economy." - Shannon Brownlee, Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine Is Making Us Sicker and Poorer (Get the book.)

"An oral drug that shows the same effectiveness as an injectable would be a huge home run," says John McCamant, executive editor of the medical technology Stock Letter. Four other pharmaceutical companies in early stages of development of p38 blockers include Vertex Pharmaceuticals, 10 Inc., GlaxoSmithKline, Sankyo and ArQule. The chief financial officer of SCIOS says: "This is a very tight race. We don't intend to be second." [Reuters, Jan 7, 2002] Advancing age increases the production of the p38 kinase inflammatory enzymes." - Bill Sardi, You Don't Have to be Afraid of Cancer Anymore (Get the book.)

"Today, this is an extremely valuable body of experiential knowledge that describes the successful clinical use of herbal medicines in a time without antibiotics or the advances of modern medical technology. Naturopathic medicine (which includes the use of botanicals) shares some historical roots with Eclectic medicine and today integrates traditional natural therapeutic agents with modern scientific medical diagnoses. From the 1920s into the 1960s, the United States entered into a period of time that could be called the "herbal Dark Ages." - David Winston, RH(AHG), and Steven Maimes, Adaptogens: Herbs for Strength, Stamina, and Stress Relief (Get the book.)

"The American Cancer Society says: "Regular checkups and today's medical technology can detect all cancer early. Routine screening has clearly led to an impressive decrease in deaths from several cancers, including cervical, breast and colon cancers. Although regular medical care can indeed increase your ability to detect cancer early, it can't guarantee it." This statement is misleading." - Bill Sardi, You Don't Have to be Afraid of Cancer Anymore (Get the book.) "In our culture, we have a unique, almost religious, faith in medical technology," says Diane Meier, director of the Center to Advance Palliative Care at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York. More patients are opting for no care rather than being tethered to a machine in their last days, she says. Unanticipated survival can be treacherous. Failure to die poses problems. What is prompting gripes and distress is that terminal cancer patients enter hospice care when their prognosis is six months or less. Patients get kicked out of hospice if they lave past a predetermined point." - Bill Sardi, You Don't Have to be Afraid of Cancer Anymore (Get the book.)

"With all our public-health expertise, medical technology, and wealth, it is patently unnecessary. We need to bolster our global public-health system, and extend the benefits to everyone. But we can also learn a lot from the efforts of those who have had to fight epidemics and medical injustice with nothing but good ideas and collaboration within communities. If we can combine the powerful tools of the former with the compassion and innovation of the latter, we can build a healthy future for all." - Alex Steffen, Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century (Get the book.)

"There is not a blood test, x-ray, MRI, or other form of medical technology that establishes the diagnosis of a psychosomatic disorder. In addition, a psychosomatic diagnosis is not a diagnosis made because nothing else fits; it has its own set of signs and symptoms, some of which do overlap with structural disorders. The best tool a physician can use is a thorough history and physical examination. Once this is accomplished a differential diagnosis is established, which is a list of possible disorders that fit with the presenting signs and symptoms." - John E. Sarno, M.D., The Divided Mind: The Epidemic of Mindbody Disorders (Get the book.) "For modern readers who might be tempted to adopt a condescending attitude toward such late-nineteenth-century medical technology, it should be noted that present day medicine has its own electrical treatments, including transcutaneous electric nerve stimulation (TENS). And copper bracelets and magnets are the rage with many back pain sufferers. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose. Freud noted that patients treated with such methods might appear to be "cured," but then soon after, they would simply develop new symptoms." - John E. Sarno, M.D., The Divided Mind: The Epidemic of Mindbody Disorders (Get the book.)

"This work exposed the soft underbelly of medical technology. There is little proof that a large part of the $2 trillion we spend every year on medicine actually does what we think it will—and lots of reason to think that it doesn't. A revolution in looking at medicine has begun, fueled by these unrelenting analyses. Whether a parallel revolution can demand the creation of full and fair evidence on environmental hazards is not at all certain." - Devra Davis, The Secret History of the War on Cancer (Get the book.)

"They argue that medical technology like the LightSpeedVCT may be expensive in the short run, but it would be foolish to impede the flow of such devices into the marketplace, because they improve the practice of medicine. (Besides, new devices and drugs means new jobs for people in the device industry and health care, and new jobs are good for the economy." - Shannon Brownlee, Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine Is Making Us Sicker and Poorer (Get the book.) "Yet the view that all new medical technology is worth the price is often at odds with the evidence—and no more so than in the field of imaging. Payments for physician services by Medicare and Medicaid rose 31 percent between 1999 and 2004. During that same period, payments for imaging services grew more than 60 percent, twice as fast, largely because physicians ordered more images per patient and more expensive images. Payments for MRI, for example, grew 140 percent; CT payments went up 1 12 percent." - Shannon Brownlee, Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine Is Making Us Sicker and Poorer (Get the book.) "In fact, maybe the real problem with prescription drugs, and indeed with medical technology in general, is not so much that they cost too much or that they're too dangerous or that they don't always work the way they're supposed to. Maybe the real problem is there's too little of the right kind of information. Drug reps Doctors have three main sources of information about medical products: sales representatives, other doctors, and medical journals. All three of those sources provide some good data, and a lot of misinformation." - Shannon Brownlee, Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine Is Making Us Sicker and Poorer (Get the book.) "These days, utilization rates of all kinds of imaging tests—MRIs, ultrasounds, PETs—are going up faster than those of any other medical technology. The use of images is rising in lockstep with the supply of increasingly sophisticated imaging machines—without much evidence that they are helping patients. The only imaging test whose rate of use is going down is the lowly X-ray. The next case on the screen is a chest X-ray of a forty-eight-year-old man with a history of an abdominal aortic aneurysm. In other words, he has a weak spot in the wall of his aorta." - Shannon Brownlee, Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine Is Making Us Sicker and Poorer (Get the book.)

"If the body's healing response remains absent, not even the most advanced medical technology or expertise will have any value. 3. The placebo effect triggers the healing response. Orthodox medicine originally defined the placebo as an inert substance that, for psychological reasons only, is administered to satisfy or please a patient. However, this definition is no longer considered accurate or sufficient. The placebo effect can occur as a result of administering substances that are not inert, just as much as it can be triggered by procedures or pills that do not include medication." - Andreas Moritz, Timeless Secrets of Health & Rejuvenation: Unleash The Natural Healing Power That Lies Dormant Within You (Get the book.)

"In the 1990s the problem became redefined as "sexual dysfunction," and its treatment was promoted by urologists, the medical technology industry, mass media, and entrepreneurs (Tiefer, 1994). A consensus conference in 1992 officially renamed the problem "erectile dysfunction" (National Institutes on Health Consensus Development Panel on Impotence, 1993), highlighting its nature as a biogenic rather than psychogenic problem. Available medical treatments such as penile surgery, implants, and injections had mixed results (liefer, 1994)." - Peter Conrad, The Medicalization of Society: On the Transformation of Human Conditions into Treatable Disorders (Get the book.)

"Science will be welcomed as the ally of holistic approaches, rather than merely a tool of drug companies and medical technology manufacturers. Doctors and patients may routinely pray together, and pray for each other. Patients' mental, emotional, and spiritual states may receive as much of a workup as their bodies, if not more so, and intention and other intangible factors might become the primary method of treatment. People will be trained to use effective self-interventions as the first line of treatment." - Dawson Church, The Genie in Your Genes: Epigenetic Medicine and the New Biology of Intention (Get the book.)

"Her holistic-health perspective offers potential parents the opportunity to create a unique preparation plan, integrating their personal and professional needs, whether they prefer to conceive naturally or with the assistance of medical technology. She is the author of a comprehensive book, Parenting Begins Before Conception: A Guide to Preparing Body, Mind, and Spirit—For You and Your Future Child, which shows future parents how they can lay the foundations for a healthy and happy life before a child is conceived and born. When do a person's emotions first begin to be influenced and shaped?" - David H. Rippe, Jared Rosen, The Flip: Turn Your World Around (Get the book.) "If you fall ill or are injured in an accident, the advanced medical technology of a modern hospital may be essential. If a child is rushed to the emergency room with a bad case of croup, she could die without the aid of pharmaceutical interventions and breathing devices. On the other hand, holistic health is focused on the true causes of systemic or chronic illness and supports the body's own natural ability to heal itself rather than forcing a "cure." - David H. Rippe, Jared Rosen, The Flip: Turn Your World Around (Get the book.)

page 1 of 2 | Next ->

FAIR USE NOTICE: The research quoted here is provided under the protection of Fair Use provisions and published by the 501(c)3 non-profit Consumer Wellness Center for the purposes of public comment and education. Authors / publishers may submit books for consideration of inclusion here.

TERMS OF USE: Read full terms of use. Citations of text from NaturalPedia must include: 1) Full credit to the original author and book title. 2) Secondary credit to the Natural News Naturalpedia as a research resource and a link to www.NaturalPedia.com

This unique compilation of research is copyright (c) 2008, 2009 by the non-profit Consumer Wellness Center.

ABOUT THE CREATOR OF NATURALPEDIA: Mike Adams, the creator of NaturalPedia, is the editor of NaturalNews.com, the internet's top natural health news site, creator of the Honest Food Guide (www.HonestFoodGuide.org), a free downloadable consumer food guide based on natural health principles, author of Grocery Warning, The 7 Laws of Nutrition, Natural Health Solutions, and many other books available at www.TruthPublishing.com, creator of the earth-friendly EcoLEDs company (www.EcoLEDs.com) that manufactures energy-efficient LED lighting products, founder of Arial Software (www.ArialSoftware.com), a permission e-mail technology company, creator of the CounterThink Cartoon series (www.NaturalNews.com/index-cartoons.html) and author of over 1,500 articles, interviews, special reports and reference guides available at www.NaturalNews.com. Adams' personal philosophy and health statistics are available at www.HealthRanger.org.