[kahljorn]

I'm not saying that medicine doesn't help people, what I'm saying is that medicine is not necessarily productive to a healthy life. I'm fat, I'll get surgery or take pills to get skinny instead of exercise or stop eatting mcdonalds. Is that healthy? I'm depressed, I'll get pills instead of learning to deal with it. Is that healthy? My leg hurts sometimes, I'll take pills to make the pain go away. Is that healthy?
Fuck, people need to learn to exercise and eat properly. I'm willing to bet that alot of health problems are caused by bad nutrition.
Remember, the FDA is the FOOD and DRUG industry.

"If a drug fucks up one in a million people, but helps the other 999,999 it is NOT worth getting all upset over it. Sucks to be that one person, but I'd rather have medicine than nothing at all."

The ratio is a lot different than that, like I was saying there is a WORD for this. Go read up on it. The only reason I target the fda is because it is in charge of our "health" and yet they really take no action other than to prescribe medicine.
Medicine that is taken daily is widely known to shorten your life. Sure, it has the capability to help some. Did I say it didn't?
Most iatrogenic illnesses aren't necessarily caused by pills, but alot of them are. There was a study not long ago that certain (popular) anti-depressants actually INCREASED the chances of suicide in teenagers. I found that hilarious and quite ironic. Estrogens are known to cause blood clots that travel to the heart and kill people, and are also known to fuck up people's ovaries. My girlfriend was prescribed estrogen as a diabetic(which you aren't supposed to receive) and it made it so she has two, sometimes three, periods within one month. That is pretty iatrogenic, how could they miss the fact that she's diabetic?
EVERY medicine has an adverse effect, whether it's just harming your liver or making you mentally retarded. If it didn't have an adverse effect, people wouldn't be taking it to try to get healthy by trying to rewire their insides. Fact is, medicines fuck with the functioning of the body and often it's chemical balance(which is, again, why people take it). That is a very delicate thing, and not really designed to be trifled with by people who don't understand everything about it. Would you prescribe someone medicine if you didn't understand everything about it and them? Just think on that.

here's something to feast your eyes on, since it's a "Study" and all:

Iatrogenesis is a major phenomenon, and a severe risk to patients. A study carried out in 1981 "found that 36% of 815 consecutive patients on a general medical service of a university hospital had an iatrogenic illness. In 9% of all persons admitted, the incident was considered major in that it threatened life or produced considerable disability. In 2% of the 815 patients, the iatrogenic illness was believed to contribute to the death of the patient. Exposure to drugs was a particularly important factor in determining which patients had complications." (Steel et al., 1981). In another study, done in 101 adverse iatrogenic events in 84 patients, "the most commonly reported process of care problems were inadequate evaluation of the patient (16.4%), failure to monitor or follow up (12.7%), and failure of the laboratory to perform a test (12.7%)." (Weingart et al., 2000).

While those problems aren't necessarily directly related to the FDA or pills, it's easy to see how they could arise from them.
I've heard before that in hawaii the health system is completely different. Rather than paying when you are sick, you pay when you are healthy. Why? Because the doctor's job is to keep you healthy, not to make you sick. I really like that idea.

I'll post something later about nutrition, perhaps, because I find it more productive than medicine-- although I can still see the relevancy of taking pills. Personally, though, I feel that before prescribing pills for minor illnesses that have little to no effect, one should at least try to live healthy. No point in taking pills if you're still going to live unhealthy. Unless, of course, you are using medicine as a means to live slothfully. Then there's plenty of points, right?

Maybe I'll post more later, I'm kind of tired right now. One last question though, how many pills actually CURE diseases or illnesses, rather than just restrain them?