By Max Hammonds, MD
This is a plea to weigh your words carefully.
It has become socially appropriate to air our grievances publicly and take out our frustrations on seemingly ineffective people – our politicians, our enemies, even our friends. Something doesn’t happen quite as we wanted it to; someone doesn’t do just as we thought they should – and we criticize loudly and publicly, frequently before knowing or waiting to understand all the pertinent information.
This current national tendency carries over into the medical field, especially in the case of diseases for which there is no consistently dependable treatment.
Cancer, for example, has a terrible track record. There is no known cure for “cancer” in general. Some cancers can be killed; some cancers can be held at bay. But the treatments that accomplish these results have their own devastating side effects. And these treatments are effective in only 5-25% of the cases overall. This is not the fault of the treatment; it’s the stubborn nature of cancer. But the medical profession uses such treatments in the hope that their patient will be in the small, but lucky group who go into remission. (There is no “cure” for cancer, only a 5-year survival rate.)
Consequently, people decry, “Doctors are trying to kill us. Doctors don’t want to find a cure for cancer. They can make more money treating cancer, than curing it.”
If your doctor wanted to kill you, he could do it much more cheaply and quickly. And if the doctor wanted to make money, he would find and patent an absolutely perfect way to cure cancer. The American Cancer Society estimates 1,685,000 new cancer cases in 2016 – and more every year following. Imagine the money one could make “curing” all these cancers. The money is not in the treatment; the money is in the cure. BUT there is no cure. So doctors do the best they can with what they have.
So, what about all those alternative medicine “cures” for disease? Unlike the promoters of these methods and potions, doctors and drug companies have to demonstrate that their methods actually work. And, unfortunately, there is absolutely no proof that these alternative methods consistently work. If the proof were there, the medical people would be the first to use them. (See paragraph above.)
Meanwhile, cancer continues to occur at an alarming rate. Life-style changes could eliminate about 80% of cancers of the lung, colon, esophagus, pancreas, and skin, and the incidence of many other cancers would be lessened. But people don’t want to change; they just want a cure. So, the medical profession searches for new methods and reluctantly uses the old methods in the hope of saving some.
Please, despite your frustration with the human inability to “cure” cancer, be careful what you say, because what you say, you begin to believe. And when you believe the medical profession is “trying to kill you,” you will no longer avail yourself of the services of the very people who have devoted their professional lives to helping you.
