Thursday, May 3, 2007

Ethics: the all-important lesson that's rarely taught in medical schools or public schools

We teach a lot of subjects to a lot of people in this country, and as a result we produce great technicians: people who are masters of subjects like mathematics, chemistry, anatomy, biology, history, American literature and so on. But there's one subject we almost never teach. You won't find it taught in our public schools, it's never mentioned in medical schools and it's only rarely approached at universities. But it's perhaps the most important lesson of all, and it's something that's desperately lacking in our society. What is it? The lesson of ethics.

In the United States, we are not taught ethics as children or adults. Unless our parents happened to be great teachers of these subjects, no one teaches us the lessons of honesty, integrity, or how to practice compassion. And the result of this lack of ethics education is a nation that pursues capitalism in all its forms without applying appropriate ethics.

This is exactly how we ended up creating companies like Merck, which sells drugs like Vioxx. This is how we created Enron, a company that deceived an entire country and took advantage of people in order to generate profits for itself. This is how we ended up with the WorldCom fiasco, the Disney meltdown, and the horrifying modern day FDA. It is a lack of ethics that has created many of the problems in this country. Not a lack of capitalism or a lack of ingenuity or a lack of technical ability, but an inability of people to demonstrate even the fundamentals of ethical behavior.

I have a theory on why medical schools, in particular, don't want to teach ethics. It's because ethics aren't black and white. There's no direct, easy answer when you start asking ethical questions. What medical schools want is one answer for one symptom. They want a clear-cut solution for every problem. It must be compartmentalized or framed in a reductionistic mindset in order to appeal to medical schools.

Yet ethics education is exactly what conventional medicine needs most, because so much of what's going on in organized medicine today is practiced without ethics, without compassion, and without any real recognition of the very humanity of the patients the industry is supposed to be serving. Too often in modern medicine, general practitioners, oncologists and surgeons look at patients as just another paying customer... another person to run through the system. And that's how a lot of hospitals and drug companies look at it, too. It's certainly how Medicare and Medicaid programs view patients. The humanity gets lost in the equation.

I agree that, as a health practitioner, it can be challenging to offer more individualized, compassionate services to patients, because if you get too close, it's easy to unintentionally take on some of the patients' stresses and sicknesses. But there is a balance that can be achieved, and I think this balance is being achieved right now by those in naturopathic medicine and the healing arts like therapeutic touch. Yet this balance is not at all achieved by conventional medicine, because ethics and compassionate are simply not part of the curriculum.

I ask, how can a medical system that has no recognition of the humanity of patients expect to find success treating those patients? It can't. And that's why modern (western) medicine has failed. Under its watch, we have seen the proliferation of the most diseased population ever observed in the history of civilization. All that medical technology, you see, is worthless if you don't have ethics guiding you in its use.

Now this isn't to say, by the way, that all doctors are unethical. Most doctors that I have met personally, even if they are followers of conventional medicine, are themselves ethical people. But they've arrived at that through personal experience, not through any formal education. We have a situation in this country where people may stumble across the subject of ethics on their own, or they may receive an education from non-traditional sources such as family members or participation in organized religion, but they sure don't get ethics from med schools.

At the same time that we have people who stumble across ethics and end up incorporating a philosophy of ethics into their lives, we also have another group of people who never embrace ethics and who basically run around society as business leaders, medical leaders, CEOs of drug companies, and political leaders. It seems like many of these people lack any degree of ethics that most other people would consider to be normal.

For example, if you were the CEO of a drug company selling a prescription drug, and you found out that your drug tripled or quadrupled the risk of heart attacks in people who took it, would you have the ethics and the courage to say, "Hey, maybe we should take this drug off the market?" That's not what happens in the pharmaceutical industry. Rather than taking the drug off the market and protecting patients, companies routinely seek to hide the negative studies, distort the truth, cover up the truth and keep selling the drug to generate profits. And this isn't an exception I'm talking about here: it's the rule in the drug industry! That's how things are actually done in the pharmaceutical world today. It's all about making more money no matter what happens to the patient. If you don't believe me, just look at what's been happening with the COX-2 inhibitors debate. This class of drugs, which has killed tens of thousands of Americans, and for which the FDA even admits a greatly increased risk of cardiovascular disease, has been selected by the FDA to remain on the market!

We are in a situation now where we have literally 25% of the Gross Domestic Product being spent on health care. That's a tremendous amount of money that's being generated through systems of marketing, advertising, propaganda and deception that are highly unethical. A recent study says that nearly half of all personal bankruptcies in the United States are due to medical bills. And that's true, but I think that the big bankruptcy in this country is the ethical bankruptcy. We are morally and ethically bankrupt as a nation. The results of that bankruptcy include skyrocketing rates of chronic disease, increased stress in daily life, reduced quality of life, growing social problems, the mass diagnosis of mental and behavioral disorders, a failing health care system, deep bankruptcy at the federal government level, and much more.

I find it astonishing that even in our public schools, children can go through 12 years of so-called "education" and not receive a single class on ethics. Unless they happen to have gifted teachers, they're never told about honesty or the power of doing good deeds for others. They're never taught to value another human life. This is simply not part of the official curriculum. In fact, most of the messages children receive teach them the opposite of ethics. Messages from the media, video games, television programs, and movies are largely about violence, trauma and killing other people in order to accomplish your goals. That's what you see in the action shows and a lot of Hollywood movies where it's all about taking out your enemy rather than finding ways to cooperate. The media engenders conflict, not compassion.

I suggest we initiate a fundamental change in our medical schools and public schools. Perhaps we should stop trying to be such virtuoso technicians and, instead, learn to apply ethics to these technical skills. Because if you're not making the right decision from a moral, ethical viewpoint, then what good is all the technology in the world?

With sufficient technology, for example, you can grow organs for human transplants inside the bodies of living, breathing mammals (like pigs). We have the technology to do that right now. But is it ethical to grant life to mammals so that we can kill them, retrieve their organs, and put those organs into the bodies of human beings who have abused their bodies to the point where their own organs have failed? Is that an ethical application of technology?

I'm not attempting to answer that complex question here, but I am saying that we need to be asking these questions. And until we do so, we're going to find ourselves deeper in bankruptcy at every level imaginable: financially, socially and ethically.

http://www.newstarget.com/004901.html

Be a fiscal patriot: die early and save your government from bankruptcy

This may come as a shock to some people, but once you retire, you're of no financial use to the government of the country in which you live, and thus the government has no financial incentive whatsoever to invest in your longevity or long-term health. In fact, if you think about it, governments that have any sort of social programs, including social security, save money when you die as soon as possible after retirement. If you live into your 80's or 90's, you are costing the government a lot of money over the long haul, whereas if you die the minute you hit 66 or 67, you've lived out your productive, tax-paying life, and yet have not cost the government by staying on the public payrolls.

Not surprisingly, some people say the government even hopes you die younger, or that the U.S. government in particular is promoting prescription drugs and discrediting nutritional supplements to make sure no one lives very long. I think that's a rather sinister assumption. I don't believe in some giant conspiracy to make everybody ill just to prevent the government from going bankrupt.

Frankly, I don't think our government has the financial sense to prevent bankruptcy in the first place. We're already bankrupt. Social security is already broke. What will it matter if the government is a little more bankrupt because people are living longer and collecting more social security? This massive government theft from private citizens is a system that's going to collapse anyway. Kiss your social security deposits goodbye if you're under 40. Chances are, you'll outlive social security's solvency by a long shot.

Or, to save it, our lawmakers will just keep raising the retirement age to make sure nobody qualifies to collect. Pretty soon it will hit 70, then 75, and then 80. All they have to do is raise the age to the point where fewer than 5% of the population even lives that long. Let's face it: social security is just a legalized Ponzi scheme -- a system of generational theft that takes money from one group of working people and hands it over to another. And just like a classic Ponzi scheme, the promises can't be met. The money simply isn't there any more, and some time in the next two decades, the public is eventually going to figure this out.

Regardless of what you believe on this issue, it's sort of a moot point, because our nation is going bankrupt anyway, and much of that bankruptcy is caused by health care costs. Today, our health care costs absorb 25 percent of our gross domestic product. One out of every four dollars is spent for healthcare, and that number is rising. It is bankrupting our nation, and just as significantly, it is reducing our competitiveness in the global marketplace. It's now comparatively cheaper for employers to hire people in other countries, not just because the hourly wage costs are lower, but increasingly because the health care costs are more affordable.

We have a worsening health care crisis in this country, and yet no one is talking about real solutions. The only discussions on the table are about shifting money from one party to another, lowering prescription drug costs, passing the buck, shuffling around paperwork, and basically just changing who's accountable for the bankruptcy, rather than actually trying to make people healthy.

We need to start investing in prevention, but of course, as I've pointed out many times, if we actually had a healthy population, the government wouldn't be able to afford it. Taxes would have to go up considerably if the average lifespan increased by only five years. And if people started eating fruits and vegetables, if the food supply was cleaned up to remove metabolic disruptors and toxic ingredients, and if hydrogenated oils were banned, then the average lifespan in this country would increase even further. That will cost the government billions of dollars that it doesn't have. Which means, of course, we'd have to sell more treasury bills (government debt) to China and Japan.

So again, some people might say that these toxic ingredients are still allowed in the food supply -- that the FDA allows companies to use hydrogenated oils and sodium nitrite and high-fructose corn syrup -- because we have to keep the population chronically diseased. They say it is not only good fiscal policy for the federal government, but it also creates generous profits for the pharmaceutical companies. That last part of it is certainly true: Big Pharma makes billions treating disease symptoms caused by toxic food ingredients.

But I don't think our federal government has the single-minded focus necessary to have an organized campaign of early deaths just to save public funds. However, there's no denying the financial cause and effect of longevity versus dying shortly after retirement. When people die shortly after retirement, they save the government a big pile of cash.

It's not a conspiracy, it's just public health complacency.
You can bet that if there were a system where people somehow paid more money to the government for every day they lived past 70, we'd see all sorts of government-funded investments in longevity research. They'd be banning dangerous food ingredients and toxic prescription drugs daily. Cigarettes would be outlawed. Junk food advertising would be banned. Subsidies would be offered for monthly fitness club memberships. And the average lifespan of U.S. citizens would skyrocket.

But that's in la-la land. In the real world, nobody makes any money when you live longer. The only person who benefits is you.

Your internal conspiracy theory
You want a conspiracy theory? I'll give you one: most people conspire to kill themselves before retirement age by avoiding exercise, eating processed foods, refusing to take nutritional supplements and gulping down dangerous prescription drugs. If there's anyone to blame for dying early around here, it's the people who refuse to take care of their own health.

I mean, let's face it: an informed consumer doesn't have to eat hydrogenated oils at all. C'mon... it's listed right there on the label! You can't blame the FDA or federal government for your health problems when you're the one wolfing down another five donuts at dessert. And don't blame social security for the fact that your own food and lifestyle habits add up to an average lifespan of about 53. That's your own fault, not the government's. Even people who know what's unhealthy still manage to conspire against their own good sense and eat that stuff anyway.

That's the real conspiracy here, folks.
Because remember this: you can't control the lawmakers in Washington. You can't control the future of social security. You can't even control the FDA. But you can darn well control what you put in your own mouth. Your health is the one thing about your future that you do control.

So if you want to be a fiscal patriot, go ahead and die early to save the government from bankruptcy. But if you want to be healthy, focus on those things you can control and make the best of them. This nation may end up flat broke, but at least you can walk away from it all with your health fully intact.

To me, that's a lot more valuable than a bunch of IOUs from a government that's already neck-deep in the tar pit of financial ruin.

http://www.newstarget.com/007763.html

Head of GAO warns America is headed for financial ruin; national debt will bankrupt U.S. economy

(NewsTarget) The comptroller general of the United States says the nation is on the path to financial ruin unless the American public tells Washington to change its ways.

David M. Walker, head of the General Accountability Office, or GAO, is the nation's top federal accountant. With the voting season now in full swing as November approaches, candidates from both major political parties are talking up the standard issues that energize the public and encourage discussions, but no candidate appears to be talking about the state of the nation's fiscal prospects.

"This is about the future of our country, our kids and grandkids … we the people have to rise up to make sure things get changed," says Walker.

Walker said the challenges facing the nation were severe as the federal government continues to fund operations by borrowing foreign money. He also warned of the coming effects on the economy as the "baby boomer" generation begins retiring, calling it a "demographic tsunami" about to wash ashore.

"He can speak forthrightly and independently because his job is not in jeopardy if he tells the truth," said Isabel V. Sawhill, a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution. Walker's term ends in 2013, as he is serving a 15-year term as the comptroller of the U.S., so he has one of the most secure jobs in Washington. That fact frees him to be candid about the state of the nation's economy.

"You can't solve a problem until the majority of the people believe you have a problem that needs to be solved," Walker says.

Mike Adams, a consumer advocate, adds that "The U.S. national debt is the 800-pound gorilla hiding in the economic closet … no one wants to talk about the national debt, and no politician who talks about reducing it will ever get elected. The U.S. public has lost any appetite for fiscal restraint and seems intent on driving this economy into total debt collapse."

http://www.newstarget.com/020930.html