~~~ Thanks Kathy, great find ~~~

Note from Ilena: "Modern Medicine" Guerrillas screech and wail about
any death from non-Pharmaceutical Cartel backed  therapies ...
forgetting that most who look for alternative therapies do so because
con-med has failed them. These Ragtag Posse Guerrillas ignore the
hundreds of thousands of "modern medicine" deaths ... pretending still
that theirs is the only way. They go after wonderful doctors who work
to find the solution to hard to diagnose and treat illnesses ... while
sheltered with no medical licenses of their own to pull ... and never
a board certification. (Stephen Barrett ... never board certified,
unlicensed for over a decade).

The despicable antics of the Guerrillas are seen on the internet based
at the Web of Deceit led by the Healthfraud Team:

www.humanticsfoundation.com/andysposse.htm#RagtagPosse

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

http://www.mercola.com/2004/nov/24/modern_medicine.htm

How "Modern Medicine" Killed My Brother

y Russell L. Blaylock, M.D.

Earlier this month, I traveled to Monroe, La., to bury my dear older
brother, Charles. Charles was not only a wonderful brother, but he was
a man with a heart of gold who always put the needs of others and his
family before his own. Charles, unfortunately, began smoking when he
was in law school, something I warned him about repeatedly.

Approximately four months ago, I noticed that he was getting hoarse.
He brushed it off and continued his hectic schedule. When I again
visited him a month later, he was still having the hoarseness. I
advised him to see someone about it. He took my advice and saw a local
physician group. The doctor was actually too busy to see him and had
his nurse see him.

Before he went to the doctor, I told him it was critical that he have
the doctor examine his vocal cords. The nurse looked in his throat,
but wasn't trained to examine his vocal cords.

Two more weeks passed during which his doctors assured him that it was
nothing more than bronchitis. They treated him with steroids and
antibiotics, but no one examined his vocal cords.

Misdiagnosis After Misdiagnosis

I pleaded with him to see an Ear, Nose and Throat doctor, but he
trusted his doctor. For the next two and a half months, he was treated
with steroids and antibiotics. Finally, he developed pneumonia and was
admitted to the hospital, what was supposed to be one of the best
hospitals in the area.

At the time, I was on vacation in North Carolina. He told me the
doctors told him he had a bruit in his carotid artery, a sign of
atherosclerosis, and that they wanted to do an arteriogram. I advised
him against it, suspecting he, in fact, had a cancer and attempting an
arteriogram on someone with such poor pulmonary function would be
disastrous. The arteriogram was cancelled. Still, no one had examined
his vocal cords.

When I arrived, I called a friend of mine I had gone to medical school
with, and asked him to see Charles. Prior to this, I asked the doctor
in charge of his respiratory care to add vitamins and magnesium to his
IV. While he promised he would, he didn't. Every attempt to get
Charles' laboratory studies was met with obstruction based on the
Patient Privacy Act. He soon signed the necessary forms and finally I
was able to see this closely guarded data.

When I asked his doctor why the magnesium had not been added to his
IV, word was sent back to me through the nurse that she had never
heard of using magnesium. I sent copies of selected articles showing
the immense value of magnesium on pulmonary and cardiovascular
function. Still there was no response from the doctor. Not once did
this doctor call me, or answer my pages.

Finally, The Diagnosis is Made

My ENT friend did a very good workup and discovered Charles had a
large cancer in his left lower lung that was impinging on the nerve to
his vocal cord, causing one cord to be completely paralyzed. At that
point, a pulmonary physician did a bronchial biopsy and diagnosed a
poorly differentiated lung cancer, with no evidence of spread. Once
the diagnosis was made, an oncologist was naturally called, who wanted
to start a complete course of chemotherapy drugs.

I advised my brother against it, knowing the cancer would not respond
and the toxic drugs would dramatically increase his breathing
difficulties, hastening his death. He took my advice. Then, a
radiation oncologist suggested radiating the tumor to shrink it. I
wasn't supportive of this treatment, but my brother wanted something
done.

Soon afterward, he started five and a half weeks of radiation
treatment. At that point, I started him on a nutrition program and he
began to feel better, his breathing improved and he was able to go
back to work.

However, the oncologist told Charles he was losing too much weight and
he needed to eat more bread, pasta and even sweets to gain weight.
Charles, at the time of his diagnosis, was grossly overweight and
needed to lose the weight. I told him that losing the weight would
make it easier for him to breath. I had given him a copy of my book on
the nutritional treatment of cancer and told him it was critical he
follow the advice exactly.

Unfortunately, Charles decided he didn't like the taste of the
blenderized vegetables and would do what the oncologist suggested. He
began to eat ice cream, cookies and other items that cancer patients
should never eat. Once he finished the radiation treatments, he
developed fever, severe shortness of breath and had to be admitted to
the hospital.

The "Evidence Based" Physicians Take Over

Sadly, he chose a hospital that was even more rigid in its control of
the patient than his previous hospital. It was a local hospital
affiliated with the Louisiana State University Medical Center. Charles
was admitted to the intensive care unit, where he had to be intubated
and placed on a respirator.

Again, I was out of town, in fact, giving a talk at the Westin Price
Conference in Washington, D.C., on nutrition. As before, I could not
pry any information about my brother concerning his laboratory test,
chest x-rays or the reason he was deteriorating so rapidly. His doctor
refused to call me, despite numerous attempts by my sister and me to
have her call.

In all my 26 years of neurosurgical practice, I have never seen a
situation where a doctor treating a gravely ill patient would not
discuss the case with a family member who is a physician. It was as if
my brother belonged to the hospital and his physician and the family
was to be kept in the dark.

Finally, I was able to speak to one of the consulting doctors, who
told me my brother had a very low hemoglobin count. I asked him if he
was giving him blood.

After a long pause, he answered, "No." I responded, " Well, with him
unable to breath, don't you think it would be a good idea to increase
his oxygen-carrying capacity by giving him blood?" He mumbled in
agreement. I told him that I wanted my sister and her son to give the
blood and that they were in the process of doing that as we spoke. He
agreed. Yet, before my sister could have the blood transferred to
Charles, the doctors had already given him blood from unknown donors.

I rushed to my brother's side and found him awake, on a respirator and
very frightened. He was receiving no magnesium in his IV and was
getting a tube feeding-formula that contains significant doses of
glutamate, something known to cause pulmonary deterioration. Again,
his doctor never heard of that.

An Incredible Admission

At that point, Charles was lapsing into a coma. Still his doctor had
not contacted me or communicated with me in any way. Disgusted, I told
the nurse to have her come to the room and I didn't want any excuses.
I asked to speak to her in private. She insisted a nurse remain with
her. I told her of my absolute amazement that a treating physician
would not speak to the family, especially when one of the family
members was a doctor. She denied she had ever gotten a message, which
was a bold-faced lie.

I then told her that I wanted my brother to have certain supplements
that had been shown in careful medical studies to improve lung
function. She had never heard of them, but agreed to give them if her
superior, the Chief of Medicine, agreed. Therefore, I gave her a stack
of medical abstracts and told her to let me know if there was a
problem.

Within five minutes, she returned and stated that he would not agree
to it and responded that the Chief of Medicine told her that he would
not agree to change the treatment based on abstracts. I told her I
wanted to talk with him that minute.

He arrived, looking very arrogant and self-important. I decided that I
would try to calmly discuss with him my brother's case and why he
needed the supplements. Again, I asked for a private meeting. He
wanted Charles' doctor to be present.

I explained to him what I was asking for was backed up by
peered-reviewed studies and that none of the supplements had ever
shown any harmful side effects in any dose. In a very arrogant tone,
totally unsympathetic to my concern for my brother, he stated that he
only read and trusted four journals:

Lancet  New England Journal of Medicine  Annals of Internal Medicine
Journal of the American Medical Association

Shocked that anyone would admit to being so intellectually limited, I
told him there were thousands of peer-reviewed medical journals, most
of which were reputable. He responded that he didn't have time to read
or look up additional material.

What an admission!

I reminded him I practiced neurosurgery for 26 years and was a hell of
a lot busier than he had ever been. I also told him I had managed to
write three books and 30 articles for peer-reviewed journals in
addition to three chapters for medical textbooks. He had no comment.

I told him I found it inconceivable that a physician holding the
position of Chief of Staff in a teaching hospital would:

1.Admit they read only four journals  
2.Didn't have time to research material that would improve a patient's
care
3.Would be so obstinate and filled with so much self-importance they
would allow a patient to die rather than try something that had strong
clinical evidence of benefit without any complications

The doctor still refused to change his mind.

I pointed out to him, for 20 years there was a mountain of evidence
that magnesium offered tremendous protection to the heart and brain,
but because of people like him, it was only recently that magnesium
has been added to the "protocol" for heart patients. I, then, reminded
both of them that tens of thousands of patients died during that
20-year period because of their unwillingness to use a harmless
mineral like magnesium. Then I said, " Is my brother to die because of
your narrow mindedness and arrogance"?

I pointedly asked him if he could see the logic, the reasoning behind
what I was asking. He responded that he did up until to the point
about all the people that must die because of waiting for the elite of
medicine to make up their mind. I turned to the female physician and
asked her the same question. She said she agreed with the logic but
trusted her chief.

Blind Leading the Blind

I asked the Chief of Medicine if he would want the same treatment for
his brother. He thought a minute and then said, "Yes." He again,
appealed to the fact that he didn't have time to research all these
things. I reminded him that his job was to do whatever was necessary
to provide his patients with the best medical care, based on the
latest medical evidence available no matter how much time he had to
sacrifice. He could not fall back on time constraints or the fact that
he trusted only four journals.

The Chief of Medicine left, a lot less openly arrogant and
self-assured. He was not able to give a single argument to support his
intellectually bankrupt concept of medicine.

It reminded me of the title of a book I had recently purchased:
Intellectual Morons. He certainly fit the description. Before he left,
I reminded him it was doctors like him who were the problem in modern
medicine -- arrogant, condescending to patients and certain the
medical care protocols established by the elitist academians were holy
writ. Further, it was because of such an attitude that patients by the
millions were leaving the medical care system, and seeking answers
from so-called alternative medicine.

Patients were fed up with having drugs and treatments shoved down
their throats that only led to more misery and rarely helped their
disease.

The Danger of Regimentation

The practice of medicine has changed drastically in the world,
especially in this country. When I first entered the world of
medicine, doctors were able to practice independently, always
maintaining a close relationship between themselves, the patient and
the patient's family. Creative, caring doctors could alter their care
to match new developments in medicine and nutrition to the greatest
benefit of their patients. Third parties such as insurance companies,
government and medical elite were held at bay.

Yet, the new thinking is that the practicing physician, and especially
the patient, is unable to make these decisions. Instead, they are to
follow a system of regimented medicine that assigns treatment
protocols the physician is to blindly follow.

Elite boards appointed by medical associations, such as the American
Medical Association, American Academy of Family Practice and others,
design these treatment protocols and hand them down to the "ignorant
automatons" making up the vast majority of treating physicians. They
are to follow these regimented treatments without question and to the
letter.

The new breed of doctor, like my brother's doctors, fits this new
pattern well. They are convinced this "cookbook" medicine is superior
and their elite journals and medical associations know best. Like
members of the society Aldous Huxley described in A Brave New World,
they are mere cogs in the wheel of the state's machinery. They do not
question the authorities or the wisdom of their decrees. They do what
they are told. They are unable to think for themselves.

In fact, I asked Charles' doctor, "Can you not think for yourself?"
She looked at me sheepishly and said, "I just trust the Chief of
Medicine."

I also reminded the arrogant Chief of Medicine these elite
decision-making bodies have been racked with scandals that involved
financial connections to pharmaceutical companies and other medical
product manufacturers. In addition, similar scandals occurred among
the editorial staff of one of his favorite journals, the New England
Journal of Medicine.

This collectivist regimentation of medicine will only get worse.
Families are now excluded from medical care decisions, doctors do not
talk to families, the entire hospital experience is shrouded in
secrecy and patients have no say in their care. While more innovative
doctors can alter the protocols or even reject them, soon they will
not have that option. To deviate from the collectivist plan is to
invite the wrath of the legal system.

Fear of Financial Ruin

Litigation pushes many physicians into following elitist protocols out
of fear of financial ruin. In fact, these protocols have become the
"standard of care" used by the legal system. Unfortunately, doctors,
like those who killed my brother, are being turned out of medical
schools all over the country like robots. They repeat the mantra of
collectivism as if they thought of it themselves. To this new breed of
doctors, individualism and independent thought is to be discouraged
and reviled. Dependence on elite leaders will be automatic.

As an example, I recently spoke to a large group concerning the
harmful effects of glutamate, explaining it is now known that
glutamate, as added to foods, significantly accelerates the growth and
spread of cancers. I asked the crowd when was the last time an
oncologist told his or her patient to avoid MSG or foods high in
glutamate. The answer, I said, was never.

After the talk, a crowd gathered to ask more questions. Suddenly, I
was interrupted by a young woman who identified herself as a radiation
oncologist. She angrily stated, "I really took offense to your comment
about oncologists not telling their patients about glutamate."

I turned to her and asked, "Well, do you tell your patients to avoid
glutamate?" She looked puzzled and said, "No one told us to." I asked
her who this person or persons were whose job it was to provide her
with this information. I, then, reminded her that I obtained this
information from her oncology journals. Did she not read her own
journals?

Yet, this is the attitude of the modern doctor. An elitist group is in
charge of disseminating all the information physicians are to know. If
they do not tell them, then, in their way of thinking, the information
was of no value. Of course, 10 or 20 years from now, it may be the new
standard and on all the protocols.

How many cancer patients will have died during the long wait for the
elitists to conclude the information was important? A million? Five
million? Do they even care?

In my conversation with the two physicians responsible for my
brother's "care," they obviously didn't care.

It is too late for my brother. But, maybe, just maybe, if enough
people decide they do not care to leave their fate and that of their
loved ones in the hands of these arrogant regimented physicians,
something will change.

Dr. Mercola's Comment:

I know you are overwhelmed with too many things to read and I am part
of the problem but PLEASE take time out of your life to read this
incredible story of one our main contributing editors, Dr. Russell
Blaylock. Dr. Blaylock is a valued colleague and friend and he tells
the story of the untimely and unnecessary death of his brother, a
real-world sequel of sorts to our Death by Medicine series we ran
about this time last year. It is absolutely amazing that one of the
country's leading natural medical physicians could be treated so
poorly as he sought to help his brother in his struggle with cancer.

Folks, this is simply a classic example of why the current
conventional paradigm is fatally flawed. There is simply no reason
that these situations should ever happen. I believe that after you
read Dr. Blaylock's true life personal tragic experience with the
current system you will become remotivated to continue to help us
change the system by encouraging everyone you know to sign up for the
newsletter.

I truly believe my friend's brother was a victim of a madness that
passes for health care in this country, which is why I'm so focused on
sharing my vision for a new health paradigm with you. After reading
Dr. Blaylock's story, I think you'll agree.

Dr. Russell Blaylock is a board-certified neurosurgeon and author of
the highly recommended books, Health and Nutrition Secrets That Can
Save Your Life and Natural Strategies for Cancer Patients.