In the 1800's and the early 1900's the medical marketplace in the United States was quite different than it is today. The Naturopaths (ND's), the Chiropractors, the Osteopaths, the Herbalists, and the Allopaths (MD's) were all competing for patients, recognition and turf. Many times the competition between medical practitioners from different camps would even spill over into violence. In the 1800's, a medical group in Boston used a cannon aimed at the front door of their competitor’s hospital to coerce them to cease and desist what they were doing. Even though there was a lot of competition in those days, the medical playing field was relatively level, and no one had the upper hand. In the second decade of the 20th century (1910-1920) there was a dramatic shift of power in the medical arena, and everything changed.
A gentleman named Abraham Flexner was hired by The Carnegie Institute to tour the country and compile a list of all of the medical schools and hospitals that practiced MD directed drug delivery medicine. This of course was well before the age of the internet, the airplane and the interstate highway system. Flexner traveled the country mostly via train and stagecoach. Five years after he started, Flexner returned with his list (historically referred to as “The Flexner Report”). The Carnegie Institute subsequently donated millions of dollars to the medical schools and hospitals on Flexner’s list. Other groups like the Rockefeller foundation followed the Carnegie Institute’s lead and donated large sums of money to the medical schools and hospitals that delivered MD directed synthetic drug treatments. Can you guess why? The Carnegies and Rockefellers were heavily invested in pharmaceutical companies. It was a brilliant move - for them. Within 10 years of the Flexner Report, the medical stage in the United States had completely shifted in favor of the MD's. By 1920 the medical turf war game was over, the MD's were squarely in the driver’s seat of medicine and have been there ever since. Most Americans, being unaware of the history of medicine, mistakenly assume that MD's are in the driver’s seat of medicine because their treatments are better than those of their competitors. Current disease statistics prove that this couldn’t be further from the truth.
MD's are in the driver’s seat of medicine only because of financial coalitions that were organized at the turn of the 20th century. In other words, MD's own their predominant medical and social status to pharmaceutical drug money.
Now at the beginning of the 21st century, we are in the middle of a health care crisis in the United States.
If you do not think that we are actually in a Health Care Crisis, consider the following:
- The leading cause of bankruptcy is the high cost of medical care.
- The leading cause of harm is MD directed medical treatments.1,2,3,4
- The third leading cause of death is medical errors.6
- The US spends almost three times as much per person on health care as every other industrialized nation in the world and we are second from the bottom in the health of our citizens.5
- The war on all chronic diseases, including cancer, has been lost.7.8.9 The root cause of our country’s Health Care Crisis has nothing to do with Medical Insurance or a lack thereof, nor does it have anything to do with the high cost of MD directed medical treatments.
The root cause of our Health Care Crisis boils down to 3 simple facts:
1. MD directed pharmaceutical medicine does not work in the treatment of chronic disease.
2. MD directed pharmaceutical medicine is the only system of medicine that our hospitals provide, that our medical insurance pays for, and that most people even know about.
3. The American Medical Association has successfully orchestrated a 100 year long slander and smear campaign against all of their “alternative” competitors. If you are not an MD, you are a labeled (by the MD's) as a quack, and your profession is outlawed from the practice of medicine. This has made the average person hesitant and suspicious of anything other than MD directed medicine.
1. Leape L. Unnecessary surgery. Annual Rev. Public Health. 1992; 13:363-383.
2. Phillips D, Christenfeld N, Glynn L. Increase in U.S. medication-error deaths between 1983 and 1993. Lancet, 1998;
3. Lazarou J, Pomeranz B, Corey P. Incidence of adverse drug reactions in hospitalized patients. JAMA. 1998; 279:1200-
4. Weingart SN, Wilson RM, Gibberd RW, Harrison B. Epidemiology and medical error. BMJ. 2000; 320:774-777. 5. Is US Health Really the Best in the World? Barbara Star eld, MD,MPH. JAMA,2000;284:483-485.
6. World Health Report 2000
7. Chicago Tribune, Section 1, p. 27, December 12, 1991
8. Newsweek, Sep 6, 2008
9. The War On Cancer, An Atomy of failure And A Blueprint of the Future. Guy B. Faguet. ISBN 1-4020-3618