"Professor B. M. Hegde"
I was neither a fan of Gandhi nor a fan of an actor ! But after listening to his speech , I became his biggest fan ! Hats off to you sir !
“The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.”
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Hegde sir says ...........
“Science is making models, mostly mathematical constructs, which, with verbal jargon, are supposed to work,” wrote John von Newmann, a Hungarian born American scientist! With this definition modern medicine, as it is practised today, becomes most unscientific. The human body follows the holistic non-linear mathematical model in its functioning, while the modern medical model uses the linear mathematical rule of Newtonian physics with its faulty deterministic predictability model-a square plug in a round slot. Even then people claim that modern medicine is scientific. In truth the science of modern medicine is only a statistical science and not true science. Even the Institute of Medicine (IOM), the highest body appointed by the Academy of American Science to oversee and audit the medical field, has now accepted the definition of medical care as Whole Person Healing (WPH) in place of the present reductionist model of organ based sub-specialty quick fix mending, in their February 2010 meeting at Washington DC.
Douglas C Wallace, a noted American professor of genetics, in his classic, Mitochondria as Chi, in the journal, Genetics (2008; 179: 727-735) has shown that all reductionist chemical molecules used in our therapeutics, being dextrorotatory while the body molecules are levorotatory, destroy body cells. Whereas all the Eastern herbal drugs are accepted by the body as food (they are also levorotatory) and help the system! My former teacher at Harvard, a Nobel Laureate cardiologist, Bernard Lown, wrote recently in a letter to the New Yorker, along with his junior colleague, Graboys, thus: “"We believe the modern medical model has become increasingly reductionist: human beings are seen as repositories of malfunctioning organs that need repair. This view results in an onslaught of tests and uncertainty. Doctors often take refuge behind technology because it is easier and less time-consuming than talking with a complex human being who is their patient." [The New Yorker 5/17/99].
Modern medicine has become a costly chaos with no end in sight. We now have significant problems that beg urgent solutions. As Albert Einstein once observed: "The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them." We obviously need a new approach in medical science to solve our health problems. The solution to the present human-made and drug-industry-protected health problems of society can only be physiology-based. Integrated systems of medical care, where the scientifically proven safe methods of treatment from other complementary systems should form the basis of future medical care system along with corrective and trauma surgery from modern medicine; the latter together have saved many lives. One look at the common coronary bypass surgery from one of the best brains in cardiology, Bernard Lown, tells it all: “our experience and research, and those of others, demonstrate that a very significant percentage of patients undergoing bypass surgery -- perhaps as many as two thirds -- can safely defer or altogether forego these procedures by managing their heart problems with medication. Regrettably, much of the rush to invasive procedures is driven by non-medical factors -- principally economic ones.
“Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not; it is the first lesson that ought to be learned; and however early a man's training begins, it is probably the last lesson that he learns thoroughly.” wrote Thomas H. Huxley while philosophizing on human ethical values. Medical ethics is nothing but good human ethics. Recent Northwick Park tragedy is still fresh in our mind about the fallacy of extrapolating animal data to humans, while the tragedy of similar data in the case of milrinone, which worked totally differently in rats vis-à-vis humans, is all but forgotten from recent memory.
The question of complementary systems of medicine being unscientific is a figment of imagination of those that want conventional medicine to flourish for ever as it has become the biggest milch cow for the industry, by destroying anything that might endanger its supremacy. Exhaustive studies of all the “statistical science” of modern medicine shows that most of it can not stand the test of strict validation as shown by David Eddy using his new computer model ARCHIMEDES, at least in chronic illnesses to begin with. Even in the field of emergency care, where modern medicine seems to be a blessing, there are large gaps in our understanding of the management strategies! Outcome audits of such use in Vietnam and Falklands Wars leave much to be desired in emergency grievous trauma care.
Many complementary systems that are being scientifically studied by the Whole Person Healing Group of scientists based in Washington DC (1) have shown the existence of vast amounts of observational research going back thousands of years in some systems like Ayurveda. It will be easy to authenticate these data using the modern “scientific” methods to bring the best in those systems to main line medicine. The data base available could shorten the drug invention and could totally eliminate our “wrong” method of extrapolating animal data to humans. In addition we have also been using reductionist science to study a chaotic non-linear dynamic human system, wherein arrhythmia could be healthy while rhythmia could be illness!
Just as quantum physics upset the Newtonian Laws of deterministic predictability, complementary systems might upset modern medical foundations. Newtonian Laws should result in the electrons destroying their own nucleus at the atom. Electrons also do not follow the electromagnetic forces at that level! Medical science has to learn a lot from quantum mechanics but, that would need a quantum leap in the thinking of our established “leaders” in the monetary economy. Ayurveda proclaims that the “well” should be preserved and only the “ill” should be treated (leave the “well” alone wrote William Osler) as there is no way to predict the future of a dynamic organism like the human body using phenotypic data alone! Ayurveda also shows how, at the quantum level, energy and matter have no difference-most advanced quantum physics! (Matter is not made up of matter-Hans Peter Durr)
Homeopathy has been found to have a sound scientific base in that all homeopathic medicines are either in the nano or piko forms; consequently, can not be detected by the conventional chemical analysis. Since they are in nano forms they are obviously safe to the human system. The bench mark of modern medical research, the Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs), has now been torn into bits as unscientific by many studies. “Emblematic of the later history of clinical trials is the fact that the streptomycin study, extolled then and since as a breakthrough in medicine (first ever RCT), in fact yielded disappointing results: the treated cases showed improvement only for three months and thereafter began to deteriorate. (MRC 782)”
The new integrated system should only concentrate on symptomatic patients. There are no silent killers in human illness scenario. The screening for occult diseases is a new trick of the trade in modern medicine for economic reasons! This applies especially to cancer which is being increasingly detected at its pre-symptomatic stage these days. The five year relative survival rate is thus improved! But the lives of the patients are not extended by even ONE day. Nothing new has been done to affect the course of the disease, and although the patient is not living longer, it appears that there is improved five year survival if one measures the survival from the date of diagnosis. Early diagnosis only makes the life more difficult to live with fear and the unpleasant side effects of cancer treatment methods in vogue these days!
Efforts are on in some centres to authenticate healing methods in many other complementary systems of medicine scientifically to be included in the new integrated WPH system. It is also mandatory to abandon the “disease care” model of today which has far outlived its usefulness in favor of preserving the wellness of human beings. Thinkers even in the West have felt that the disease era, with its labelling human beings, has come to an end. Writing an article, “End of Disease era” Mary Tinnetti and her colleague T. Fried from Yale University had this to say: “The time has come to abandon disease as the focus of medical care. The changed spectrum of health, the complex interplay of biological and non-biological factors, the ageing population, and the inter-individual variability in health priorities render medical care that is centered on the diagnosis and treatment of individual diseases at best out of date and at worst harmful. A primary focus on disease may inadvertently lead to under-treatment, overtreatment, or mistreatment.”
Integrated system with new classification of illnesses, suggested by me, years ago, should be the future. To cap it doctors must become human and humane in their approach to patients in distress as their role in medical care delivery is more potent than all the medicines put together. The placebo doctor can provoke the human immune system much more powerfully than all medicines put together. This has now been shown to be very scientific. The forebrain secretes powerful chemicals with a good placebo response. The latter can now be studied using fMRI and also blocking the chemical release with Naloxone injections. (For research only). May the future reinvent modern medicine as the best integrated system of human illness care.
“Men stumble over the truth from time to time, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened. “
Winston Churchill
