20% of deaths in western world hospitals occur because of iatrogenic effects; in fact, the number of adverse reactions to medicines in the U.S.A. was of 2.2 million in 1994, according to analysis in a study made by Canadian investigators published in JAMA 1998(1).
The number of antibiotics annually prescribed unnecessarily is 20 million (2). The number of unnecessary surgical and medical procedures carried out annually is 7.5 million (3); the number of unnecessarily hospitalized people every year is 9 million (4); and the total number of deaths by iatrogenic effects in hospitals, annually surpasses half a million people in the USA .
Having pointed this out, I emphasize that none of the recalcitrant critics of Systemic Medicine dares question the real state of medicine; on the contrary, they turn the attention of the public, deliberately, to foster rejection towards a new form of medicine born in our country.
Those who show scruples against systemic medicine because of the way it publicizes its successes are the same that remained silent at the massive publicity Viagra campaign; the same ones that support the thousands of daily commercials of big Pharma. They are also the one who remained mute in front of the multimillion dollar campaigns that implant sex and alcohol; and those that associate sex with cigarettes. They are the `scrupulous' that accept massive prescriptions of methylphenidate -infantile cocaine according to the DEA- to our children.
They are the same that kept a tomb's silence, recently, when the FDA denounced the calamity of popular non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID's) - rofecoxib, valdecoxib, celecoxib, naproxen, ibuprofen, meloxicam and others. Lets not forget their inaction concerning Nimesulide, a dangerous drug widely used in Venezuela , which had been prohibited in other countries. That same silence resonates with the lamentations of those killed by chemotherapy, whose indiscriminate abuse kills as much people nowadays as cancer.
These 'draconian' followers now accuse the brave systemic doctors of being 'unscrupulous merchants' because they dare to practice a humanitarian medina, yet remain silent before the 20 thousand plus Venezuelan doctors who act as medical advisors, disseminating -or should it mean selling- medicines to their colleagues in clinics and hospitals.
As a monumental `handicap' against them against, these cynics denounce Systemics of `false publicity'.
And we should not speak of patriotism, because if something should be defended, it would be necessary to defend Systemics faced with the aggression of multinational laboratories. But I do not dare to insinuate this, I might be accused of requesting support for this farce of a medicine on account that it is Venezuelan.
Why is the term 'massive' publicity given to systemic medicine? The truth is that because of its impact it seems to be more massive than it really is. It impacts because of its veracity, to the point that this is hard to believe. This last is because the term 'help' has so often been betrayed. So many times the promise of aid has finished in a treason, that we refuse to think that this new offer of help is possible, because 'something else' must lye behind the 'good' intentions of those that offer assistance. From this springs the distrust.
Because of the aforementioned is that we have limited ourselves to show the testimonies of healed patients. Although they accuse us of being a slogan of 'stop suffering' indeed the suffering -for our patients- stops in 85% of the cases. In the other 15% neither cures nor does remission occur, although in these the quality of life tends to improve.
If Pfizer could voice out to the world the discovery of Viagra, without anybody detracting them, why should we as Venezuelans shout with still greater force the remission of a diabetic foot diagnosed for amputation, or that of hepatic cirrhosis or of prostate cancer of or even a multiplicity of diseases that until now were considered incurable? Our achievements are even greater for humanity than those of Viagra!
How it is possible to try to gag Systemics, in the face of the utmost necessity to spread its benefits, for the good of mankind?
If it is criminal to deny the constitutional right to opportune information, to those that require it with urgency, then to silence it is a downright tragedy.
La sistémica es un gran adelanto científico venezolano que transformará la historia de la humanidad, pues sus logros en la enfermedad crónica degenerativa, no tienen paralelo en la historia contemporánea.
Systemics is a great Venezuelan scientific advance that will transform the history of the humanity, because its benefits in chronic degenerative diseases are unparalleled in contemporary history.
References:
1. Lazarou J, Pomeranz B, Corey P. Incidence of adverse drug reactions in hospitalized patients. JAMA. 1998;279:1200-1205.
2. Rabin R. Caution About Overuse of Antibiotics. Newsday. Sept. 18, 2003
3. Calculations detailed in Unnecessary Surgery section, from two sources:
http://hcup.ahrq.gov/HCUPnet.asp and US Congressional House
Subcommittee Oversight Investigation. Cost and Quality of Health Care:
Unnecessary Surgery. Washington , DC : Government Printing Office, 1976
4. Calculations from four sources: http://hcup.ahrq.gov/HCUPnet.asp
5. Siu AL, Sonnenberg FA, Manning WG, Goldberg GA , Bloomfield ES, Newhouse JP, Brook RH. Inappropriate use of hospitals in a randomized trial of health insurance
plans. NEJM. 1986 Nov 13;315(20):1259-66
6. Siu AL, Manning WG, Benjamin B. Patient, provider and hospital characteristics associated with inappropriate hospitalization. Am J Public Health. 1990 Oct;80(10):1253-
7. Eriksen BO, Kristiansen IS, Nord E, Pape JF, Almdahl SM, Hensrud A, Jaeger S. The cost of inappropriate admissions: a study of health benefits and resource utilization in a department of internal medicine. J Intern Med. 1999 Oct;246(4):379-87.
