ABSTRACT
Doctors and medical technology bring huge benefi ts to society. However, the track record of the profession in its wide-scale interventions is less impressive. This, after all, the profession which has in recent years: overprescribed antibiotics to the point where they are generally increasingly less effective and completely ineffective against some new bacteria; dosed a large proportion of the middle-aged female population of the UK on tranquillisers like Valium
and Librium to keep them “happy” – the so-called “great happy pills delusion”; attempted mass prescription of statins, in spite of the contra-indications; regularly go to court to coerce patients into receiving treatment they have declined; swore that unsaturated fats were killers, which turned out to be completely incorrect; attacked red meat in the diet based on very sketchy evidence; forcefully advocated the “fi ve a day” fruit and vegetable diet, on a wholly arbitrary basis; and invented “desirable” limits for alcohol consumption with no scientifi c basis. Is it surprising that the result is people have lost faith in the medical profession? Is it surprising that many patients are fearful of a medical profession which over-diagnoses, overprescribes and over-treats? Is it surprising how suspicious people are becoming of medics who accept rewards from drug companies for promoting their pills?
