The fragile paradigm of western medicine
In our society, when we’re sick, our knee jerk reaction is to obtain an expert diagnosis of what it is we’ve contracted and to respond with a targeted prescription. We entrust our lives to this simple paradigm.
What could possibly go wrong?
While there are some benefits to this approach, it is often superficial, myopic and petty.
Our bodies are complex, physiological processes highly interdependent and there are frequently unknown or intentionally concealed trade-offs for everything we ingest.
A pharmaceutical is not just a hammer to be used on the right nail. It may be having effects that will come to light much further down the line.
We can barely measure the relatively simple and isolated cause-and-effect of physics. Anyone who claims that the biology of a system as complex as the human body is anywhere close to a perfect science is either clueless or lying.
What are some of the trade-offs I’m talking about?
- The contraceptive pill was long hailed as revolutionary for female emancipation. Today, it is mostly women who have to deal with its diverse side-effects.
- Many have warned about antibiotics and their downstream negative effects on the gut biome for a while. Our doctors still do not really hesitate to prescribe them for every bacterial (or viral) infection under the sun.
- Chemotherapy seems increasingly better at extending some patients’ lives, but it is almost guaranteed to make those lives a lot more miserable.
- Vaccines can have negative consequences in the short- and long-run, it’s not always clear that their benefits outweigh these consequences. “Science” is not allowing this to be public information.
Not to mention the plethora of scandals conjured by our pharmaceutical industry in areas ranging from pain killers to heart burn medicine.
We’re all ingesting and injecting more and more of these pharmaceuticals all the time and yet… life expectancy in the US is now declining.
Maybe this is an opportunity to pause and and ask ourselves how this is possible.
