We spend nearly 20% of our GNP on health care—far more than any other developed country. In fact, we outspend the nearest competitor by nearly two to one. You would think that spending more money on health care would allow us to enjoy better health. Unfortunately, the opposite is true.
A recent report by Save the Children, an international, non-governmental organization that promotes children’s rights, released a State of the World’s Mothers 2015 Report that ranks the best and worst places to be a mother. (1) This report is timely as Mother’s day is coming this Sunday.
The U.S. ranked 33 out of 170 countries, down two spots from last year. More notably, we ranked dead last amongst all the developed Western countries. The same organization ranked children’s well-being and reported that U.S. children ranked 42nd—again, dead last among all developed, Western countries.
It is a sad state of affairs that there is not an outcry from any of the Powers-That-Be or the U.S. Government on these statistics. We pay a lot of our hard-earned money on our medical care, yet we have little to show for it.
Why do we finish last or near last on every health indicator? One of the main reasons we score so low on all the major health care indices is that we take too many ineffective and toxic prescription drugs. By far, Americans take more prescription medications than any people on the planet.
I was taught in medical school how to diagnose pathology and prescribe the drug to treat that pathology. Nowhere in my medical training was I taught about health. Medical school was and is presently taught as a diseased-based model. It should be taught as a health-based model.
What can we do? First, we need to demand more from our legislators. If we made it clear to them that we are unhappy with our health care system, they would start to investigate the matter and take action to change how we are using our health care dollars. If we demand nothing, they will continue to do nothing about the health care mess we are in.
Individually, we can all make better choices on what food we eat and whether we exercise on a daily basis. Furthermore, a patient should make a decision whether or not to take a prescription drug that has been prescribed. Only a knowledgeable patient can make that decision. It is up to each and every one of us to become educated about how drugs work in the body. Remember, you are in ultimately in charge of your own health care decisions.
I think the health care problems we face today can be distilled to one major issue: we take too many prescription drugs that fail to treat the underlying cause of an illness. Cholesterol-lowering medications are a perfect example of a class of medications that do not effectively treat the underlying cause of an illness, yet they are prescribed for nearly 30% of our adult population. Furthermore, cholesterol-lowering medications cost too much money and are associated with many adverse effects. I have written extensively about the failure of these drugs in my newest book, The Statin Disaster.
Once we all start making better health care choices, things will change because the money trail will change. Until the money trail changes, it will be business as usual for health care in the U.S.
I say, if we are going to spend 20% of our GNP on health care, we should be getting something positive out of it.
DrB
- http://www.savethechildren.org/atf/cf/%7B9def2ebe-10ae-432c-9bd0-df91d2eba74a%7D/SOWM_2015.PDF
Hi Dr. B. Thank you for kicking butt!
I’d like to ask a question about iodine/iodide. It’s more of a statement than a question, but here it is.
Is it really that bromine and fluoride are that toxic? Because I don’t really think it’s that literal. After all, unrefined salt, seawater, and even seaweed all contain generous amounts of bromine and even fluoride.
Isn’t it more that there are benefits to ingesting extra iodine/iodide, and reducing halogen intake from unwanted sources by say.. filtering shower water, purifying drinking water, and only using fluoridated toothpaste and mouthwashes?
I mean, bromine and fluoride are so common in everything even from unrefined salt to seaweed. It can’t truly be eliminated from the diet. Isn’t it just that the benefit comes from ingesting more iodine/iodide? To help balance the halogens so there’s a better balance between them. Instead of 1% I-/I2, 99% Cl, Br, and F. Ingesting more iodine/iodide and getting enough salt there’d be maybe 60% I-/I2, 25% Cl-, and 15% Br/F.
Also, for brushing teeth. I understand that Japan and Israel don’t fluoridate water, but they use fluoridated toothpaste and mouth wash. What is your recommendation on dental health with fluoride dental care products? I personally think the greatest benefits of fluoride are when it’s applied directly to teeth when brushing and mouth washing.
Arnold,
The oceans have trace amounts of bromide and less fluoride. We can live without fluoride and probably bromide, but, we cannot live without iodine. The amounts of bromide and fluoride we are currently exposed to are toxic, at least in my opinion.
Topical fluoride as found in toothpaste does have some benefits or effects on the tooth enamel. Fluoridated water has no such benefits.
DrB
Peter: you nailed it perfectly. Worker-bees are no longer needed by the System once their productivity has been completed. That’s why estate taxes exist thereafter.
Many governments, especially those with already huge retirement pension liabilities growing ever larger as a major factor within their economies have no incentive to increase the health and longevity of the population – quite the opposite. The great financial crisis of recent times has knocked pensions, and pension expectations for the baby boomers especially and there is equally no incentive for governments to assist their population to live longer and healthier lives especially after 65 years of age.
Health care payments go to support the existing ineffective so called health care system and the VERY profitable pharmaceutical industries, high tech medical test equipment manufacturers and private medical insurance funds. A sick and dying population milks both government and private money and transfers it into select private hands while helping to limit the total of all pension payments whether from government of private retirement funds.
We are just animals being farmed for profit.
I think there are so many people that just don’t understand what’s going on that yes: the corrupt political/medical/healthcare/gov’t systems are to blame.
However, there are so many people that just obviously WANT to eat their crappy poisonous foods, abuse their kids by failing to educate them or even protect them from the same…in fact feed them the garbage directly, force themselves and kids to get the vaccines and other nonsense, love going to the doctors and nurses for attention for all their “syndromes’ and other such symptom-named disorders, complaining about their ailments to everyone for sympathy, etc etc etc … that THEY WILL NEVER CHANGE. Quite simply: they will just die off in the decade or two to come. I simply won’t be among them because I choose a different path.
Really, all us health conscious people have to do is fight battles that will still affect us (geoengineering/chemtrails, forced vaccines, unlabeled GMO’s, home-farm restrictions, mandatory national insurance, etc…) and meanwhile we will just outlive all the idiots. All the more resources/jobs/whatever remaining available for us and our healthy children, eventually. I focus on survival, and don’t spend nearly as much time trying to educate my stupid associates who simply do NOT want to change, exert any effort, or even learn anything. I accept that they will just not live very long. Their choice for them, just like my choice for me.
We will outlive the whole damned lot of them, including the fat-cat politicians, bankers, doctors, CEO’s, whoever. Then we can change things for the better even much more. I still try hard now to change things, just have a more long-term perspective.
For what it’s worth.
I wholeheartedly agree! In addition to big pharma, we need to reduce the rates for malpractice insurance by capping medical lawsuits. People need to take charge of their own health, not rely on suing doctors and hospitals – this just creates fear and raises rates. I personally would like to see more medical doctors, nurse practitioners and physician assistants get involved in holistic therapies. This would more properly treat the entire person when they are having issues. To focus on one part of the person instead of the whole person is causing problems.
For anyone reading this blog whose physician has them on a statin drug, I recommend looking at the many serious side effects possible.Google can be a great way to do that.
Dr. Duane Graveline (spacedoc.net) is one of the most vocal critics of statin drugs and he has his own story to tell.
Then and only then, decide if you still want to take this drug.
It messes with the methylation pathway in a big way.
As long as Big Pharma is handing out Big Bucks to help our legislators, including our president and everybody else with any power and influence, get elected, things will only get worse. They are trying right now to make vaccination a mandatory federal law. When I say now, I mean some of our legislators, guided by their moneyed backers, Big Pharma.
The same is true for Big Food.When did parents start feeding their children separately from themselves? I’ve seen so much of this – worthless food-like products that don’t provide nutrition. The parents don’t eat much better, but I’ve often seen parents give kids junk shortly before a meal, then comment that the kids aren’t hungry as an excuse for not giving them more nutritious food that everybody else is eating.
I do believe that the movement for better food, better health, and fewer drugs must start with the people. Our government is pretty much owned by huge business interests and that isn’t going to change until people wake up and demand a change. When the Soviet Union fell, when the Berlin wall came down, when we began paying attention to civil rights of minorities, all these changes came from the people. Changes like what we need in this country will never come from the top down because the top is being too well paid to maintain the status quo.
Thank You Dr. B!
I can see that Save the Children is doing a good work and is probably able to produce believable reports. (I’ve heard similar assessments on the health ranking of Americans among that of the rest of the world.) I can understand how you can say “demand more from our legislators”. Surely the plight of all children’s poor health is humanity’s cry for rethinking.
Are the legislators responsible for children’s health? For those who think so I’d ask have Americans always looked to the legislators for their health needs? Of course not! If Save the Children can show how they respond to malnourishment by supporting the distribution of goat milk where it is needed in Kenya (an excellent all-inclusive source of nourishment, BTW) why would we want to look to legislators when the FDA has launched a veritable war on raw milk across the u.s. of A.? Besides food, health as well as agriculture are not the Lawfully delegated business of Congress (as my blog article will show).
Therefore I am convinced that health (in light of America’s poor health rating) must be rethought. My thought is that it takes a community to rethink this on a local level. The fact that health is not on “the list” of delegated powers in the Constitution (of September 17, 1787) means that neither the federal government nor the state governments (by way of their extension) have any lawful responsibilities for our health. In fact there is plenty of evidence indicating that government is incapable of guiding the people toward greater health. (The government’s anti-fat campaign is probably their most outstanding health disaster!) People can disagree but I still say this needs rethinking!
To do: end federal farm subsidies and nutrition guidelines as they support Big Ag and make pasture-raised meat appear artificially expensive. Go back to high-deductible insurance that leaves you alone until something expensive happens, instead of what is effectively prepaid sickcare with a stupid level of bureaucracy. Pass the Flat Tax so that basic living expenses like health insurance are covered under the umbrella of huge personal and dependent deductions and not as an employer tax deduction.
Dr. B,
Are there any adverse effects if a person abruptly stops taking statins. Unfortunately, both of my parents have been taking Zocor (or the generic equivalent) for many years. I was thinking about giving them your book, but I haven’t read it yet and didn’t know if there were any concerns with stopping cold turkey.
Thanks,
Ed