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The Wednesday Letter

July 5, 2000

What's Wrong With Doctors?

It's an unfair question, of course, but it needs to be asked.

This is one in a continuing series of answers to that question.  I invite my readers to suggest answers of their own!

Today's answer:  What's wrong with doctors is their  medical education! What's wrong with medical education?  For one thing, there is a common teaching procedure of giving doctors (when they have become interns) regular schedules so that they get no sleep for 24 to 36 hours.  Their schedules are often planned, deliberately, to put the student-doctor into a state of sleep deprivation for the psychological purpose of seeing how he will "act under stress."  That may appeal to some, but a more realistic explanation for this procedure is to brainwash the young interns.

People who want to become doctors are often, initially, motivated by the very highest principals of wanting to help and serve.  They also know that there are tons of materials that they don't yet understand.  So, they are usually eager to learn and willing to listen.

When they are sleep-deprived is the very best time to teach them according to many educators.  They don't have the strength to disagree -- it's just like learning under hypnosis.  It "works" in the sense that they learn the data implanted into them, but the process bypasses any shred of personal judgment.

Some of the most dubious information is saved for the time of the internship.  The actual teachers during a doctor's internship are nothing more than senior interns -- it is verbal data coming into the head of a sleep-deprived medical student.

Dr. Robert S. Mendelsohn was a regular guest on my nightly radio show many years ago, and commented about this frequently.  He even suggested that a medical student who tried to exercise too much "independent thought" during his internship would likely be flunked out.  Medical situations often call for quick decisions, and that is no place for an inexperienced and untrained doctor.  So, the young interns learn to follow the lead of the older, more experienced interns and doctors.  When the young intern is sleep-deprived, he will follow robotically.

The late Robert S. Mendelsohn put forward the word "iatrogenocide" in his best seller, Confessions of a Medical Heretic.  The meaning, of course, is death caused by the doctor, but in this case, the death of whole ethnic groups caused by the doctor.  I suggest that sleep-deprivation, as in brain-washing, is a deliberate teaching technique in our medical schools, for the purpose of implanting rote certainty on the validity of drugs.

Ten years after medical school, as a practicing doctor, it is THAT education which is at the core of his robotic reaction to any suggestions about "alternative health care."

The typical medical doctor has been brainwashed, with all apparent good purpose, into a slave mentality that is unthinking and non-judgmental about what he believes to be true.  There is an excellent article on brain washing available, and the Chapter that mentions sleep-deprivation type actions you can find by clicking here.

Here is an example from the news on June 11, 2000:

June 11, 2000

Interns' Long Workdays Prompt First Crackdown

By ROBERT PEAR

ASHINGTON, June 10 -- The authorities who evaluate medical education have, for the first time, begun to crack down on doctor-training programs that force interns and residents to work excessively long hours.

More than 29 percent of training programs in surgery and internal medicine were cited for violations of work-hour standards last year, according to the private group that evaluates and accredits medical education.

Moreover, after years of debate, some experts now say that sleep-deprived doctors are more likely than other physicians to make mistakes, threatening patients' safety. Medical errors are attracting increasing attention, and the government is contemplating new steps to strengthen how they are reported and corrected.

The new data on work-hour violations came from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, the body that sets standards for the training of doctors and measures compliance.

Doctors in training often work 36-hour shifts and 100-hour weeks, and experts in the field say that New York is the only state with a law limiting such work hours.

The council has never before disclosed the number of violations. But Dr. David C. Leach, executive director of the council, said: "There has been an increase in the frequency with which this issue provokes a citation. That reflects an increase in the number of programs that are in violation of the standard for work hours."

The council said it reviewed 69 training programs in general surgery last year and cited 25 of them, or 36 percent, for violating its standards on permissible work hours. Reviewers found similar violations at 7 of the 13 programs in pediatric surgery, 54 percent; 28 of the 92 programs in internal medicine, 30 percent; and 20 of the 69 programs in orthopedic surgery, 29 percent.

The council did not identify the teaching hospitals with violations.

Requirements vary from one specialty to another, but reviewers found frequent violations of three standards in particular. The standards state that residents must have off at least one day out of every seven, should not be on duty in the hospital more often than every third night and should not have to work more than a specified number of hours -- say, 80 hours a week, averaged over a one-month period.

Dr. Rachel R. Marcus, a 32-year-old fellow in cardiovascular medicine at Stanford University, fondly remembers her years in training at a major teaching hospital in Boston, but said: "I was chronically fatigued, so tired I felt as if I was operating in a daze sometimes. You go into medicine for idealistic reasons, but by the end of a grueling internship, you see each patient you admit to the hospital as a barrier to getting sleep. That's a horrible way to interact with people."

 

Dr. Marcus said residents' lack of sleep could affect their decision-making ability. "I remember one night in the hospital when I told a nurse something that was wrong, the exact opposite of what I should have said about giving antibiotics to a patient," she recalled. "Seconds later, when I was more awake, I realized my error, but I still wonder what might have happened if I'd gone back to sleep."              If a teaching hospital does not correct its violations, it can face serious penalties. A training program may lose its accreditation. If that happens, the hospital will lose some of its Medicare money, and residents will shun the program because they cannot be certified as specialists unless they graduate from an accredited training program.

No training program has lost its accreditation exclusively because of work-hour violations.

The effort to restrict work hours comes as Congress is considering legislation to reduce medical errors and as labor unions are intensifying their efforts to enlist doctors.

Strict compliance with the work-hour standards could increase costs for teaching hospitals, which often rely on young doctors as a source of low-cost labor. Dr. Leach said that budget constraints had forced some teaching hospitals to cut back "support staff," including the people who draw blood and transport patients. Some hospitals use residents to perform such tasks, he said.

"It's said that the health care system is broken and has cracks in it, and that residents live in those cracks," Dr. Leach said. "They are the glue that holds the system together. They get things done even though the system is dysfunctional."

For a decade, New York State has had a law that limits most interns and residents to 24-hour shifts and 80-hour workweeks. But in 1998, the State Health Department found widespread violations. Since then, the state has inspected 35 teaching hospitals and fined 26 of them for allowing residents to work hours that far exceed the limits set by state law.

Without explicitly resisting the work-hour limits, many surgeons have expressed skepticism.

Dr. George F. Sheldon, a former president of the American College of Surgeons who is chairman of the surgery department at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, said: "A surgeon has a fiduciary responsibility to care for a patient before, during and after an operation. You can't punch a clock and say, 'My time is up.' We believe in continuity of care. That is not always consistent with working a fixed number of hours."

Dr. Marvin R. Dunn, who coordinates the council's review of residency programs, agreed. "Continuity of care by the same physician is very important, especially in surgery," Dr. Dunn said. "Errors are made when patients are handed over from the care of one physician to another."

But Dr. William C. Dement of Stanford University, a pioneer in the study of sleep, said his research and observations strongly suggested that "sleep deprivation contributes to medical errors," and that "with more hours of sleep, doctors make fewer errors."

 

A synthesis of the Russian Textbook on Psychopolitics

Mark L. Levy, executive director of the Committee of Interns and Residents, a labor union with 10,000 members, said that teaching hospitals and medical societies had for years opposed limits on residents' work hours. Medical educators are beginning to enforce such limits, he said, because they want to prevent unions from gaining ground. "Teaching hospitals and accrediting agencies are trying to clean up their act," Mr. Levy said. "They are becoming more systematic in enforcing work standards. They are finally acknowledging that work hours are excessive. They are doing this, in part, to reduce the appeal of and need for unions."

Dr. Richard B. Reiling, who supervises the surgical residency program at Kettering Medical Center in Ohio, said it was inappropriate to set rigid limits on doctors' work hours.

"In this day and age," Dr. Reiling said, "a lot of residents want the time off not because they're tired, but because they want to moonlight to make extra money to pay off their monumental loans."

Moonlighting -- clinical activity outside an educational program -- is not counted in determining how many hours a doctor has worked. But Dr. Dunn, of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, said the organization was considering a change in policy to require that such work be counted.

What Are  The Results Of Sleep Deprivation?

Doctors who are short on sleep will accept any data -- including a technique invented at Johns Hopkins University, and used by thousands of doctors everywhere in the 1940's and 1950's.  Here is a quote from the Wall Street Journal article.  Click here to read the entire article.  Needless to say, doctors NOW don't do this because the new "program" has now been brainwashed into their practice!

Typically, long, thin rods with radium-filled tips were slipped into the nostrils and left there for 10 to 12 minutes. Then the procedure was repeated twice more over a number of weeks.

It's estimated the treatments hit the adenoids -- the lymphoid tissue at the back of the nose and upper throat -- with at least 2,000 rads of radiation, although some guesses are much higher. Nearby organs such as the brain, thyroid and pituitary glands received collateral radiation ranging from a few rads to perhaps 150. By comparison, cancer patients typically get a total of about 6,000 rads over a month-long period to shrink their tumors; an average diagnostic X-ray delivers about one-twentieth of a rad.

"I remember sitting in a chair with these rods going up my nose," says Steven Nassau, a 59-year-old Connecticut lawyer whose adenoids were irradiated when he was seven or eight. Thirty years later, he was diagnosed with a rare cancer of the soft palate, and after several surgeries now wears a prosthetic device so he can talk and eat. About a decade ago, a benign tumor was found on his brain stem.

Not Here?

You think this wouldn't happen?  This is a tongue in cheek sarcasm, but it could well be true! How about the University of Virginia?

 The University of Virginia's psychology department, who conceived the project five years ago, has been conducting an experiment using the academic activities of unaware students.  Told in the fourth year of high school that they had been accepted to the University of Virginia's Engineering School, the students arrived in droves.  Deceived into thinking that doing massive amounts of homework, completing pointless projects, and attending mind-numbing classes were the criteria for receiving a "degree," the students have actually been spending their lives working through a plethora of meaningless busywork.  The purpose of this workload is to keep the participants awake for countless nights, and even many all-nighters.

 So far, the four-year experiment has yielded fascinating results.  The subjects have responded mentally with a zombie-like indifference to all things and stunted social skills.  Physically, the students have a sickly, pale pallor, and shrunken genitalia.

 The results of the study will be released in several months, at which point it is anticipated that many other colleges across the country will also want to conduct the experiment.

Or, try this one:

Thoughts Of A Medical Student

Ironically the most healing I did all day was to squeeze the arm of a classmate being beaten down. Everyone's miserable. The whole mentality is if I can't sleep, if I can't have spare time, neither can you. One resident confided in me that she felt real hatred walking home in the morning as she watched kids running around, people smiling. A real hatred, she repeats.

The interns are the sickest looking people on the floor. As the interns experience the worst time of their lives, they forget that it's probably the worst time for the patients too. The same my-life-sucks-so-yours-should-too attitude towards medical students gets directed towards patients. The roots of the word compassion mean "suffering with," but the interns just suffer alone.[36] I bet that my surgical intern could be hospitalized for depression.

Pharmacy Student Proves The Point!

I am now responding to hundreds of eMail questions every week -- many from doctors and medical students.  I got the following query from a young medical student recently:

He is a student at:

Dear Karl,

I was looking at the website about the role of the FDA and on the website it said you were looking forward to answering the question and you began by saying one, then it didn't have anything after that. Could you please forward me the info about the role of the FDA, also I am from Mass. College of Pharmacy and I am doing a health analysis report: and I have to present an argument about if I think that if the FDA regulated the selling of herbs and dietary supplements? would this stop the deaths from these substances or not? 

I wonder whether the FDA should regulate all those herbs that kill people?  I guess I'll ask Karl Loren what he thinks!

[Karl Loren:  These Students are charming, smart and hard-working.  It's a shame their lives get so perverted by the medical education!]

Do you think the FDA should reg. the selling of these products? Why or Why not? and if they did reg it would it stop the deaths or are the deaths from misuse or drug interactions and the FDA reg. wouldn't help? Please get back to me as soon as possible at the email address I provided above ( sharrington2@mcp.edu ). 

Thank you for your time and your knowledge.

Sincerely,

Summer Harrington  {write to him!}

To this I answered:

Dear Summer.

Why do you assume that herbs kill?

I am not inclined to "help" someone with that type of prejudice.  Medical education is one of the most sorry spots of our society -- you get taught by drug companies, whether you realize that or not.  No, you should get a better calling than dispensing poisons in the name of health.

Karl Loren

To my amazement, Summer was willing to put with my criticism, and wrote twice more!

Dear Karl,

I was not stating that herbs kill ---- it was a question I was given in class and I have to take either side of the issue and I wanted to understand both sides of the issue and get people's opinion that knew more than myself.

I was simply asking for your opinion --whether or not you think the FDA should regulate the selling/distributing of herbs and dietary supplements, or do you think that the deaths that the news paper say are the cause of these "drugs" are from some other reason and the FDA regulation on these items would have no effect because the people aren't dying from them in the first place. I wasn't saying that I thought people died from using herbal supplements ---- I was asking for your opinion so I could better understand my question in class. I don't appreciate you jumping down my throat when all I was asking for was your opinion. Please, if you find the time and are willing could you respond back to the question I wrote you yesterday about herbs and dietary supplements and whether the FDA should regulate them?

Thank you

Sincerely,

Summer Harrington

Well, I did reply, again, and again.

Dear Summer,

Sounds like a typical medical school scheme:

I don't want to know! Don't look at the truth!

"Do you still beat your wife? Answer please."

"Do you want the FDA to regulate all those herbs that kill people?"*

You may not be saying this, but you are learning it.

Find out, first, how many people die of aspirin overdose [18.7% of all persons using aspirin in a controlled test experienced adverse reactions] every year, and what the fourth largest cause of death is in the US -- hospital administered drugs that were either excessive or in conflict with other drugs administered in the same hospital. There IS an evil empire!  Explore the fact that the fourth leading cause of death is harmful drug interactions INSIDE hospitals -- from drugs prescribed by those hospitals!

Take a look at my page on Prozac -- I have more pages about the evils of Prozac than, probably, all other web sites combined -- yet you and your colleagues will continue to prescribe it because that is what you learn in your "school." Shame on you.

The question about herbs and the FDA is a hostile and fraudulent question --an honest man would refuse to answer it.

You are on the golden path towards stupidity -- that is what doctors learn in med school -- that 60 mg per day of Vitamin C is all you need, and that you can get all the vitamins you need from a balanced diet -- and they then teach you the 40/30/30 dist -- 40% of your calories from carbohydrates -- which, I know you won't believe it, is the diet designed EXACTLY to create heart disease.

Get a life!

You wonder why the public is so hostile toward doctors? If you don't know, you may never know.

Karl

The Clinton Health Care Plan Lives

One of most fascinating types of testimonials is where I publish, for the whole world to see, a person who has not yet taken one of my products, and then promise to publish the results.

Obviously, if it "didn't go right" I would have egg on my face!  But, look at the glory when the results come out as predicted.

This type of testimonial is all the more satisfying to me when I can publish the person's eMail address along with the start of the process.  Thus, people can write to him and ask, "Is this for real?"  and, get an answer.

Well, a year is up, and Don Rankin is ready to report in.

First, he and I exchanged many eMails, and I published his first letter on my web site on February 16, 1999.  So, it is now more than one year.  What has happened?

Well, first, you should read the interesting exchanges he and I had starting more than one year ago -- the link above.

Next, read what he wrote to me on June 11, 2000:

Dear Karl,

Its me. Don (the Shawnee) I don't remember but I think I found you via WebCrawler. As you know, my testimonial has generated a few e-mails asking questions about chelation. I had another Thallium with treadmill test along with sonogram a couple weeks ago. You may recall that I have been taking Life Glow Plus for a little over a year now. At least I think that is the time frame. Four or five years ago I was railroaded into a triple by-pass. This latest test was a follow up. The nurses were VERY concerned. The Doctors became mute. Why? My arteries were said to be completely clear. NO, I repeat NO blockage. The technician scanned the aorta as well as the heart etc. One of the techs kept stammering, "This is impossible!" I just smiled and asked why? Her response was rather telling. She said, "four years ago your heart attack risk (by their standards) was three times average, today your risk is one half average!"

What does that say about their techniques and hi-tech toys. I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE WORSE NOT BETTER. Prior to the finding the attending physician was lecturing me because I refuse ALL lipid and heart meds including aspirin. I told him I would not take the poison. He fell silent when the results were announced. He had been so eloquent in his own way prior to the findings.

After the results were revealed he slunk away. This fellow was not my regular doctor. My regular physician knows better than to engage me in trivial discussion about current meds. He knows I'm a traditional herbalist.

Even though I am traditional I make use of good diagnostics, then treat the problem traditionally.

I just thought I would let you know. You may recall your words to your readers when you and I began this journey last year with no idea of how it would turn out. I salute your courage and I salute your product. By the way I am slap out!! Will contact you soon for a new order. Keep on keeping on.

One final note: No doubt I was a Syndrome X profile. My current cholesterol rating put my HDL at 52! At the time of surgery it was 32. I have done niacin, etc. Today I still follow a largely Neanderthal diet. Actually a traditional Shawnee diet with some modifications. As we have discussed, no refined sugars, no packaged products, no hydrogenated oils, no white potatoes, no corn, no white rice, in fact very few grains. I do own and use a Vitamix everyday at least once. I either make fruit juice smoothies or vegetable drinks. I also utilize 5 -21 day cleansing juice fasts when I feel like it. Click To Mail to:  Don

Marvin

June 9, 2000

Dear Jean & Karl

Enclosed please find my check for $150 + $5.00 for four bottles of Life Glow Plus.  I have now finished the four month plan of taking 20 capsules per day and it is nothing short of a miracle.

I've rejoined life!

I have energy, my mind is more agile and clear and I'm almost pain free.  i feel like a completely new person from what I was just a few months ago.

Thank You for such a wonderful product and thanks also for your action and writings about the greedy drug companies and the sheepish medical profession.

With sincere thanks,

Marvin

Dear Marvin,

I'd like to somehow convey my appreciation for your letter.

It is not that your letter is unusual, and it is not that I "need" confirmation on the value of my own product, but the real reason I value testimonials like yours is because they are independent of me and so real!

Marvin, I'd appreciate your permission to publish your letter in my monthly newslteer -- comes out on the Internet only, and is sent by eMail to a couple thousand people.

Are you subscribed?  it's called The Wednesday letter and comes out on the first Wednesday of every month. The next issue will be published on July 5th, and is already complete.  I'd like to include your story.

There are millions of people every year who die needlessly of heart disease -- there is a simple explanation for heart disease, and a simple remedy, but there are billions of dollars of drug profits hinging on the public believing a false story about the cause and cure of heart disease.

The truth would swipe billions of profits from their business -- so, the truth is attacked and the lies are supported.

That's why testimonials are so useful.  Your story can convince a dozen or more people to try this stuff, and allow them to achieve the same types of successes you have had.

So, your testimonial is nice for me to read, and I think you, but a dozen or more, unknown to you, will read it, try Life Glow Plus and have similar results -- your story will help many.

Keep it up, Marvin.

Karl Loren

Next Month?  Have You Ever Been Told You Need A Biopsy?

Karl Loren decided, in June, that he needed a biopsy!!  Normally he urges people to avoid them!  Next month you will learn what he doesn't yet know, at the moment of this writing (June 11, 2000) -- the results of the biopsy.  You'll hear the whole story, including exactly what Karl did, prior to the biopsy, and what he strongly recommends that you do too!

Next month!  Also, probably, a FIRST EVER special edition when I am ready to announce a brand new product -- you'll receive it when it is ready!

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