Iatrogenesis

[Guest guest]

I just wrote the first in a series of lay oriented blogs about the causes of

illness in TCM.

Today was on iatrogenesis. The purpose is to encourage TCM herb use instead of

drugs

whenever possible. Feel free to link it to your clinic website to inform your

patients if it

resonates with you. No part may not be copied and stored on another server or

printed for

distribution.

 

http://www..org/2005/07/chinese-medicine-and-healthcare.html

 

 

[Guest guest]

Today's NY Times has an article in the business section called

" Blockbuster Drugs Are So Last Century " . It should be available at

the NY Times website.

 

To quote: " (Eli) Lilly is ambitiously rethinking the way drugs are

discovered and sold. In a speech to shareholders, Lilly's chief

executive presented the company's new strategy in a pithy phrase:

" the right dose of the right drug to the right patient at the right

time " . In other words, Lilly sees it s future not in blockbuster

medicines like Prozac that are meant for tens of millions of

patients, but rather in drugs that are aimed at smaller groups and

can be developed more quickly and cheaply, possibly with fewer side

effects " .

 

This is a major paradigm shift from the old Paul Erlich dogma-based

model of " one disease, one cause, one drug " .

 

Interesting times, indeed.

 

Another interesting article can be found at the Santa Fe Institute

website www.santafe.edu on " Cancer's Complex Nature " . The author

proposes a " physics-based model of tumor growth " . Researchers

Stephanie Forrest and Brian Reed propose a new therapy " rather than

killing off the cancer cells, boost the reproductive fitness of

relatively benign cells, therefore allowing them to out-compete the

cancer cells in the race for dominance " .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To quote

On Jul 2, 2005, at 5:54 PM, wrote:

 

> I just wrote the first in a series of lay oriented blogs about the

> causes of illness in TCM.

> Today was on iatrogenesis. The purpose is to encourage TCM herb

> use instead of drugs

> whenever possible. Feel free to link it to your clinic website to

> inform your patients if it

> resonates with you. No part may not be copied and stored on

> another server or printed for

> distribution.

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Wasn't it Beadle and Tatum who started the one gene/one enzyme hypothesis which

was later refined to the one cistron/one polypeptide hypothesis? I think this

triggered what Rene Dubos refers to as " the doctrine of specific etiology " in

The Mirage of Health (1959) that has been the prevailing paradigm in Western

biomedicine. The doctrine of specific etiology, or the one disease/one drug

paradigm has worked relatively well in dealing with infectious diseases and

emergencies, but its oversimplicity in dealing with complex chronic illnesses is

something that is quite obvious to the people of my generation. Ask any

twenty-something man or woman whether he or she agrees more with " one gene/many

diseases " or " one gene/one disease " and I am confident the answer will be the

former. The prevailing paradigm among the twenty-something crowd also includes

" one disease/many causes/different treatment " and " different diseases/same

causes/same treatment. " We've seen our parents and grandparents

become victims of iatrogenic disease due to the doctrine of specific etiology,

so we have been able to recognize its faults.

 

<zrosenbe wrote:Today's NY Times has an article in

the business section called

" Blockbuster Drugs Are So Last Century " . It should be available at

the NY Times website.

 

To quote: " (Eli) Lilly is ambitiously rethinking the way drugs are

discovered and sold. In a speech to shareholders, Lilly's chief

executive presented the company's new strategy in a pithy phrase:

" the right dose of the right drug to the right patient at the right

time " . In other words, Lilly sees it s future not in blockbuster

medicines like Prozac that are meant for tens of millions of

patients, but rather in drugs that are aimed at smaller groups and

can be developed more quickly and cheaply, possibly with fewer side

effects " .

 

This is a major paradigm shift from the old Paul Erlich dogma-based

model of " one disease, one cause, one drug " .

 

Interesting times, indeed.

 

Another interesting article can be found at the Santa Fe Institute

website www.santafe.edu on " Cancer's Complex Nature " . The author

proposes a " physics-based model of tumor growth " . Researchers

Stephanie Forrest and Brian Reed propose a new therapy " rather than

killing off the cancer cells, boost the reproductive fitness of

relatively benign cells, therefore allowing them to out-compete the

cancer cells in the race for dominance " .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To quote

On Jul 2, 2005, at 5:54 PM, wrote:

 

> I just wrote the first in a series of lay oriented blogs about the

> causes of illness in TCM.

> Today was on iatrogenesis. The purpose is to encourage TCM herb

> use instead of drugs

> whenever possible. Feel free to link it to your clinic website to

> inform your patients if it

> resonates with you. No part may not be copied and stored on

> another server or printed for

> distribution.