Doctors Are More Harmful Than Germs
Harvey Bigelsen, M.D. with Lisa Haller
Doctors Are More Harmful Than Germs
North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, CA 2011
The Hippocratic Oath's "Do no harm" is in direct conflict with modern medicine (which is not about healing but rather about trying to create the absence of disease). Founder of the American Holistic Medical Society, Dr. Harvey Bigelsen, left the conventional medicine after becoming frustrated with overprescribed surgeries and with the attitude of the medical community to treat symptoms and not patients. Doctors Are More Harmful Than Germs: How Surgery Can Be Hazardous to Your Health — And What to Do About It is Bigelsen's wake-up call to the profession, and to patients, that the body does indeed want to heal itself, and invasive medical procedures lead to long-lasting health problems. Citing inflammation as the actual cause of chronic disease, Bigelsen explains that inflammation is not good or bad but rather the body's first response to injury and, left alone, usually resolves itself. Surgery, however, actually traps inflammation in the body and creates the ultimate stagnation. While allowing that some surgeries are necessary and helpful, such as broken bone repair, Bigelsen cautions that many patients routinely submit to non-critical inflammation producing surgeries. Out-patient "procedures" such as tooth extractions, root canals and colonoscopies injure the body and are agents of inflammation. Noting that "most, if not all, of us have had some kind of medical intervention by age twelve" Bigelsen encourages moving forward with our individual health care using simple, non-toxic approaches. He advocates finding a good bodywork practitioner who can locate where the structure is blocked. Skilled cranial osteopaths, massage therapists, physical therapists and chiropractors can work with the blood and lymph and connective tissue. If a medical doctor is still your primary physician, get a second and even third opinion from another type of health practitioner such as a naturopath, herbalist, osteopath, or acupuncturist. To any test or intervention recommendation, ask why, and exhaust all other options. Minimizing intervention minimizes the risk of chronic diseases.
