I Beg to
Differ
Medical Profession Doesn't Always Welcome Diversity of
Opinion
By Nicholas Regush ABCNEWS.com
(1999)
OPEN YOUR MOUTH against the prevailing medical wisdom
and expect to get shot in the knees and even worse. Certainly forget
about being honored with free trips to "educational events" in Hawaii.
(And if you're a journalist, expect to have your work questioned and
your credentials challenged.)
If you want a chance at big-time success in medicine,
then toe the line and protect the profession against all infidels.
That's the simple recipe that will buy you the dream house.
Democracy in medicine is fast dying. Don't say you
weren't warned.
Granted, there are always exceptions to the rule.
And some with a lot of smarts play both sides of the fence, not
to mention their mouths. These political creatures hang on by a
thread. Careful: The north wind can be surprising.
Big-Bucks Conformity
How do I know all this? I watch it very closely,
that's how. I've been watching free speech in medicine get cut off
at the mouth recently, never mind the throat. Bring in the big industry
bucks, wheel in the institutional power and bus in the apologists.
Hit squads form quickly. There is valuable intellectual property
to protect at all costs. Many dreams to purchase.
Let's say you are a medical scientist who has wondered,
from time to time, whether HIV is really the cause of AIDS, or whe-ther
AIDS is as simple as one virus. It's a reasonable question, given
that we're 20 years into the epidemic without much in the way of
enduring therapy. But do you really want to express this opinion?
Or merely raise the question? If you do, then the new Gestapo will
likely pay you a visit. Forget about that government grant. Forget
about the raise. You will find yourself marginalized, your reputation
smeared, and you'll probably be out on the street.
The same will likely happen if you challenge the
idea that all vaccines are good for you. So what if emerging data
raise serious questions about the potential of vaccines to alter
the immune system, particularly of the very young, and in some cases,
even trigger body processes that could contribute to a variety of
chronic diseases, including diabetes.
Speak and You Shall Pay
When you have been covering medicine for as long
as I have, you become aware of a long line of destroyed careers
and lives of those who have dared to speak out against the common
view. I speak to some of these people every week as I do research
for my stories at ABCNEWS.
Medicine has always had its controversies, and change
has always been slow. But what occurs now far more frequently than,
say, a decade ago, I've detected, is the attempt to silence those
who buck the establishment.
One nasty tactic commonly used by the Orthodox Docs is to accuse
the maverick of injuring patients by spreading confusion. For example,
those questioning HIV are often said to be enabling unsafe sex or
stopping people from taking their numerous medications. Those suggesting
that some vaccines are unnecessary and potentially dangerous are
said to be leading children to harm or even death.
Media Mea Culpa
As a journalist, I take all this in and I think
I see the system for what it is: driven not by the exchange of ideas
but by money and the pursuit of power. This mercenary approach is
so locked in now, thanks to huge industry control of medical-science
financing, that the captured rats in the cage, the spokespeople
for this enterprise, appear to have lost sight of the maze's entry
point. Talk about a blind spot.
Media often give sustenance to the Grand Monopoly
by ignoring people with fresh ideas. Credibility is not measured
by what a person actually has to say or the experiments performed.
Credibility is what school you went to, where you happen to teach,
or the friends you've won or perhaps purchased.
From the Mailbag
Which brings me to this column. Each week I receive
numerous e-mails. Sometimes they come from doctors or scientists.
More often than not, someone in academe wants to trash me. And that's
OK. Keep the ideas flowing, no matter what.
But when I receive a letter that resembles the hit
squad mentality often found in medicine these days, I begin to boil.
I don't like to be dismissed offhand as someone who is hurting patients
with my points of view just because my ideas don't necessarily mesh
with the mainstream on a particular issue. While many of the medical
mavericks don't have the opportunity to hit back, I do, and when
I can, I will.
Back