Jun 20, 2024 04:42 AM
I’m a rational anti-medicine nut
https://johnhorgan.org/cross-check/im-a-...dicine-nut
EXCERPTS: . . . The hell with that, I told Theresa, from now on I’ll only see a doctor if there’s something wrong with me.
Theresa replied, Oh, Barbara Ehrenreich did that, and she wrote a great book about it.
In Natural Causes, published in 2018, Ehrenreich announces that she’s done with preventive medicine, at least the part aimed at detecting diseases before they produce symptoms. “I will seek help for an urgent problem,” she writes, “but I am no longer interested in looking for problems that remain undetectable to me.”
Ehrenreich reached this decision in her 70s, which she says is “old enough to die,” a remark to which I return below. Actually, her critique of preventive medicine applies to people of all ages, with a crucial caveat: preemptive tests make more sense for those with a family history of a disease or otherwise at risk.
Below I summarize Ehrenreich’s key points:
PROFITS TRUMP HEALTH: Preventive medicine transforms healthy people, as Ehrenreich puts it, into “raw material for a profit-hungry medical-industrial complex.” The basic assumption underpinning all her analyses is that American health care prioritizes profits over health.
That harsh charge, to my mind, is corroborated by two statistics: 1, the U.S. spends far more on health care per capita than any other country. 2, the U.S. has a lower life expectancy than many nations spending far less per capita. See this recent analysis of the problem. We Americans pay more and get less. That’s the very definition of a bad deal.
ANNUAL CHECKUPS ARE “WORTHLESS”: Ehrenreich cites a 2015 N.Y. Times essay in which health-care expert Ezekiel Emanuel calls annual checkups “basically worthless.” A 2019 meta-analysis by Cochrane Collaboration, a nonprofit that evaluates medical procedures, corroborates Emanuel’s assertion. Cochrane concludes that “health checks are unlikely to be beneficial and may lead to unnecessary tests and treatments.”
[...] Just to be clear: I’m not renouncing skin exams, colonoscopies and other preventive-medicine procedures because I’m ready to die. I’m renouncing them because I see no evidence that they will help me live a longer, healthier life; I’m more likely to be treated unnecessarily than to have my life extended.
I turn 71 this week... (MORE - missing details)
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Seems reverse of what it should be, to me. I've been avoiding doctors for most of my adult life thanks to proper diet, exercise, effective self-treatment, and "seemingly" lacking those inherited risk-factors (for now). But their view seems to be the very opposite of that: Only ceasing those decades of regular check-ups and countless prescribed medications upon reaching the "when the luck runs out" septuagenarian years.
https://johnhorgan.org/cross-check/im-a-...dicine-nut
EXCERPTS: . . . The hell with that, I told Theresa, from now on I’ll only see a doctor if there’s something wrong with me.
Theresa replied, Oh, Barbara Ehrenreich did that, and she wrote a great book about it.
In Natural Causes, published in 2018, Ehrenreich announces that she’s done with preventive medicine, at least the part aimed at detecting diseases before they produce symptoms. “I will seek help for an urgent problem,” she writes, “but I am no longer interested in looking for problems that remain undetectable to me.”
Ehrenreich reached this decision in her 70s, which she says is “old enough to die,” a remark to which I return below. Actually, her critique of preventive medicine applies to people of all ages, with a crucial caveat: preemptive tests make more sense for those with a family history of a disease or otherwise at risk.
Below I summarize Ehrenreich’s key points:
PROFITS TRUMP HEALTH: Preventive medicine transforms healthy people, as Ehrenreich puts it, into “raw material for a profit-hungry medical-industrial complex.” The basic assumption underpinning all her analyses is that American health care prioritizes profits over health.
That harsh charge, to my mind, is corroborated by two statistics: 1, the U.S. spends far more on health care per capita than any other country. 2, the U.S. has a lower life expectancy than many nations spending far less per capita. See this recent analysis of the problem. We Americans pay more and get less. That’s the very definition of a bad deal.
ANNUAL CHECKUPS ARE “WORTHLESS”: Ehrenreich cites a 2015 N.Y. Times essay in which health-care expert Ezekiel Emanuel calls annual checkups “basically worthless.” A 2019 meta-analysis by Cochrane Collaboration, a nonprofit that evaluates medical procedures, corroborates Emanuel’s assertion. Cochrane concludes that “health checks are unlikely to be beneficial and may lead to unnecessary tests and treatments.”
[...] Just to be clear: I’m not renouncing skin exams, colonoscopies and other preventive-medicine procedures because I’m ready to die. I’m renouncing them because I see no evidence that they will help me live a longer, healthier life; I’m more likely to be treated unnecessarily than to have my life extended.
I turn 71 this week... (MORE - missing details)
- - - - - - - - - - -
Seems reverse of what it should be, to me. I've been avoiding doctors for most of my adult life thanks to proper diet, exercise, effective self-treatment, and "seemingly" lacking those inherited risk-factors (for now). But their view seems to be the very opposite of that: Only ceasing those decades of regular check-ups and countless prescribed medications upon reaching the "when the luck runs out" septuagenarian years.