Intended for healthcare professionals

Rapid response to:

News

Doctors' strike in Israel may be good for health

BMJ 2000; 320 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.320.7249.1561 (Published 10 June 2000) Cite this as: BMJ 2000;320:1561

Rapid Response:

Doctor strikes, lowered mortality--Happens every time

The 1960's saw physicians in Canada go on strike and the mortality
rate dropped.

Los Angeles physicians associated with a USC hospital went on strike
in the 1970's and the mortality rate dropped.

Physicians went on strike in South America (Columbia?) later that
same decade and the mortality rate dropped.

Physicians have now gone on strike on 3 different occasions in Israel
--in the 1950's, again in the 1970's or 80's and now in the the year 2000.
In all 3 occasions the mortality rate has dropped, on one or two occasions
by 50%.

Conclusion? I'm sorry to say, but conventional, allopathic, (drug and
surgery happy) physicians remain very, very dangerous to our health
(recall the May, 1998 JAMA article reviewing deaths caused by Rx
medications given to American hospitalized patients? 106,000 deaths caused
by Rx drugs each year on average, making Rx drugs in American hospitals
the 5th or 6th leading cause of death! We badly need science-based
alternative medicine, don't we.

Competing interests: No competing interests

06 March 2001
James Braly
Las Vegas, Nevada