Rapid responses are electronic comments to the editor. They enable our users
to debate issues raised in articles published on bmj.com. A rapid response
is first posted online. If you need the URL (web address) of an individual
response, simply click on the response headline and copy the URL from the
browser window. A proportion of responses will, after editing, be published
online and in the print journal as letters, which are indexed in PubMed.
Rapid responses are not indexed in PubMed and they are not journal articles.
The BMJ reserves the right to remove responses which are being
wilfully misrepresented as published articles or when it is brought to our
attention that a response spreads misinformation.
From March 2022, the word limit for rapid responses will be 600 words not
including references and author details. We will no longer post responses
that exceed this limit.
The word limit for letters selected from posted responses remains 300 words.
“What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the world, and lose his own soul?”
St. Francis of Assissi
The so called medical non-science was the one that made me change track early on in my professional life to start unlearning what I learnt in the medical school to relearn real humane medicine. It was an unending journey that continues well into half a century. All through I have been sharing my experience with my colleagues but there was not much of a positive response. There used to be only negative criticism and derision. After a couple of decades I thought it was futile to try and convert the converts, but I am now trying to convert the non-converts by enlightening the consumers of western medicine, the hapless patients. This week’s British Medical Journal (BMJ 2015;351:h5228) makes me very happy as deputy editor Theodora Bloom, in her editorial, has reiterated what I had been saying for years but much more explicitly giving names of the culprits which I cannot afford to do for fear of unnecessary litigation.
After talking about unrestricted use of medical devices, many of which are not authenticated, causing harm to patients she goes on to my pet theme of calcium and vitamin D supplements. I had been warning doctors and patients alike that elderly people should not be given calcium and vitamin D supplements as they cause dangerous side effects without giving any benefit to the patient. What surprises me is that even so called specialists also prescribe these drugs very generously. What is needed in old age to avoid bone fractures is to treat causes of frequent falls in that age group like benign positional vertigo and many such stability problems. A balanced diet with plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables should look after the body’s daily needs of all elements. In India sun helps us a lot, the only thing free in this world where drinking water also costs a fortune.
In a related article in the same BMJ, Karl Michaëlsson writes “The profitability of the global supplements industry might play a part, he speculates, noting how difficult it is to identify the influence of industry on people who write dietary recommendations”. I might add the same about the guidelines committees for various medical and surgical treatments. Today the physician or surgeon has very little to think about treatment as s/he has to follow the guidelines some of which are downright business driven.
Timothy Anderson and colleagues (doi:10.1136/bmj.h4826) “have quantified the links between academic leaders and US healthcare companies, including those producing medical equipment and biotechnology as well as drugs. In 446 publicly traded companies, they identified 279 directors affiliated with 85 non-profit academic institutions who collectively received nearly $55m (£36m; {euro}50m) in individual payments (median individual compensation $193 000) alongside tens of thousands of company shares. Although some academic institutions place limits on the amounts their staff can receive from companies. Why is $5000 a day acceptable but not $50 000?"
The ideal recommendation should be to say NO; non-profit medical leaders should be excluded from directorships of healthcare companies. Same holds good for arms deals. In the recent Syrian conflict who benefits? The arms companies, of course. Good for the economy, right? As Hamit Dardagan notes in his linked editorial (doi:10.1136/bmj.h5041), these data underline the urgent need to ban the use of indiscriminate weapons in populated areas. At the end of the day human lives, patients in the first case and civilians in the next, are but a statistic as long as the industries make their money and the so called economy does well. In all sciences business seems to be the guiding force.
Look at the definition of health, as declared by the Alma Ata conference. The definition is so loaded with investigations to rule out all kinds of diseases--real and imaginary--that it will take so much money for the poor patient to know just if s/he is healthy? A big industry has grown around it, called the Screening Industry in an editorial in the BMJ some years ago by the then editor Richard Smith. Elsewhere Richard had suggested a simple definition of health based on the Freudian principle of “health is work and love”; Freud had defined health as “work and sex.” Now that we know that the human mind is the same as human body (energy-matter=a duality) all diseases start in the human mind and also get healed in the mind. I had defined health as “enthusiasm to work and enthusiasm to be compassionate.” This definition draws sustenance from Indian Ayurveda and fits the bill perfectly. One does not have to spend even a penny to know if one is healthy.
Although Richard Smith had shown how impossible it is to have the Alma Ata definition of health before death or outside human orgasm lasting for a few seconds, the world wants to stick to the Alma Ata definition based on large industry! Science is another name for shady business giving the latter respectability! Look at what is happening in the cosmetics industry. “Arsenic in your lips and lead in your eyes” declares the editorial in the Consumer Education and Research centre magazine on its September 21st issue. “According to figures given by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), the size of the Indian beauty and cosmetic market is around Rs. 6,049 crore (60, 049 million Indian Rupees), showing a growth of 15-20% per annum.”
However, the cosmetics industry has not kept pace with safety innovations due to a weak regulatory system. This, and ignorance about chemical hazards among consumers, has enabled manufacturers to hide the true toxicity of their products. Was it not a part of the huge money making industry? William Wordsworth was right in 1802 when the first industry started in England, when he wrote that “We have sold our soul (to the Devil); a sordid boon.” What does it matter to the economy if a few thousand women die of these pollutants as long as the industry rakes in so much profit for the economy? In fact, it will be good for the economy too as there will be so many mouths less to feed!
“Money is the measure of all things and profit the primary goal. For oppressors, what is worthwhile is to have more--always more--even at the cost of the oppressed having less or having nothing. For them, to be is to have.”
Paulo Frire
Money alone runs the world.
“What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the world, and lose his own soul?”
St. Francis of Assissi
The so called medical non-science was the one that made me change track early on in my professional life to start unlearning what I learnt in the medical school to relearn real humane medicine. It was an unending journey that continues well into half a century. All through I have been sharing my experience with my colleagues but there was not much of a positive response. There used to be only negative criticism and derision. After a couple of decades I thought it was futile to try and convert the converts, but I am now trying to convert the non-converts by enlightening the consumers of western medicine, the hapless patients. This week’s British Medical Journal (BMJ 2015;351:h5228) makes me very happy as deputy editor Theodora Bloom, in her editorial, has reiterated what I had been saying for years but much more explicitly giving names of the culprits which I cannot afford to do for fear of unnecessary litigation.
After talking about unrestricted use of medical devices, many of which are not authenticated, causing harm to patients she goes on to my pet theme of calcium and vitamin D supplements. I had been warning doctors and patients alike that elderly people should not be given calcium and vitamin D supplements as they cause dangerous side effects without giving any benefit to the patient. What surprises me is that even so called specialists also prescribe these drugs very generously. What is needed in old age to avoid bone fractures is to treat causes of frequent falls in that age group like benign positional vertigo and many such stability problems. A balanced diet with plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables should look after the body’s daily needs of all elements. In India sun helps us a lot, the only thing free in this world where drinking water also costs a fortune.
In a related article in the same BMJ, Karl Michaëlsson writes “The profitability of the global supplements industry might play a part, he speculates, noting how difficult it is to identify the influence of industry on people who write dietary recommendations”. I might add the same about the guidelines committees for various medical and surgical treatments. Today the physician or surgeon has very little to think about treatment as s/he has to follow the guidelines some of which are downright business driven.
Timothy Anderson and colleagues (doi:10.1136/bmj.h4826) “have quantified the links between academic leaders and US healthcare companies, including those producing medical equipment and biotechnology as well as drugs. In 446 publicly traded companies, they identified 279 directors affiliated with 85 non-profit academic institutions who collectively received nearly $55m (£36m; {euro}50m) in individual payments (median individual compensation $193 000) alongside tens of thousands of company shares. Although some academic institutions place limits on the amounts their staff can receive from companies. Why is $5000 a day acceptable but not $50 000?"
The ideal recommendation should be to say NO; non-profit medical leaders should be excluded from directorships of healthcare companies. Same holds good for arms deals. In the recent Syrian conflict who benefits? The arms companies, of course. Good for the economy, right? As Hamit Dardagan notes in his linked editorial (doi:10.1136/bmj.h5041), these data underline the urgent need to ban the use of indiscriminate weapons in populated areas. At the end of the day human lives, patients in the first case and civilians in the next, are but a statistic as long as the industries make their money and the so called economy does well. In all sciences business seems to be the guiding force.
Look at the definition of health, as declared by the Alma Ata conference. The definition is so loaded with investigations to rule out all kinds of diseases--real and imaginary--that it will take so much money for the poor patient to know just if s/he is healthy? A big industry has grown around it, called the Screening Industry in an editorial in the BMJ some years ago by the then editor Richard Smith. Elsewhere Richard had suggested a simple definition of health based on the Freudian principle of “health is work and love”; Freud had defined health as “work and sex.” Now that we know that the human mind is the same as human body (energy-matter=a duality) all diseases start in the human mind and also get healed in the mind. I had defined health as “enthusiasm to work and enthusiasm to be compassionate.” This definition draws sustenance from Indian Ayurveda and fits the bill perfectly. One does not have to spend even a penny to know if one is healthy.
Although Richard Smith had shown how impossible it is to have the Alma Ata definition of health before death or outside human orgasm lasting for a few seconds, the world wants to stick to the Alma Ata definition based on large industry! Science is another name for shady business giving the latter respectability! Look at what is happening in the cosmetics industry. “Arsenic in your lips and lead in your eyes” declares the editorial in the Consumer Education and Research centre magazine on its September 21st issue. “According to figures given by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), the size of the Indian beauty and cosmetic market is around Rs. 6,049 crore (60, 049 million Indian Rupees), showing a growth of 15-20% per annum.”
However, the cosmetics industry has not kept pace with safety innovations due to a weak regulatory system. This, and ignorance about chemical hazards among consumers, has enabled manufacturers to hide the true toxicity of their products. Was it not a part of the huge money making industry? William Wordsworth was right in 1802 when the first industry started in England, when he wrote that “We have sold our soul (to the Devil); a sordid boon.” What does it matter to the economy if a few thousand women die of these pollutants as long as the industry rakes in so much profit for the economy? In fact, it will be good for the economy too as there will be so many mouths less to feed!
“Money is the measure of all things and profit the primary goal. For oppressors, what is worthwhile is to have more--always more--even at the cost of the oppressed having less or having nothing. For them, to be is to have.”
Paulo Frire
Competing interests: No competing interests