Friday, October 25, 2013

The Germ Theory

What is the Germ Theory besides being one of the most effective marketing tools ever devised?  It is a theory that 'you' can 'catch' a virus simply by being in close proximity to, shaking hands with or kissing someone with a virus aka a germ.  Ok, so viruses can be transmitted through the air or by kissing the person with the virus. If viruses can be transmitted so easily why aren't we all dead? 

 Based on the naked theory itself it would stand to reason that 'we' would catch the flu, cold or SARS, AVIAN or H1N1 each time we came into contact with someone carrying it.  Meaning that we would never be well, ever.  Our immune system would simply be overwhelmed by the constant barrage of new viruses we would be inhaling, each time we took a breath.  Heaven forbid you fall in love because the act of expressing it would, theoretically, be fatal.  In short if the 'Germ Theory' had teeth our species as well as many other species would have gone extinct long, long ago.

So why aren't we all dead?  Our immune system.  We must be able to adapt to whatever we are exposed to or die. When we go outside on a cold day or bodies get goose bumps and shiver as a means of creating energy to generate warmth.  Our bodies have adapted to the situation.  If we are exposed to a flu virus via natural means, i.e. breathing it in, our bodies immediately identify it as a foreign invader, mark it and immediately begin manufacturing anti-bodies to fight it off. 

You will become symptomatic as your body works to fight this new invader off.  When it is all over, you will have a permanent immunity against that specific virus for the rest of your life.  Whereas if you get the flu shot you are getting last years virus, doing nothing to fight off this years version.  So you will get the flu anyway and the immunity against 'last years' bug will wear off in ten years or less. 

 Historically the 'Germ Theory' is based on 'Demonology'. A medieval idea that sickness was caused by demon possession in punishment of your sins.  Yes the church was diagnosing sickness as punishment for sin.  So not only did some poor soul have to suffer from the symptoms of an illness they had to suffer the condemnation of their peers because it was 'their' fault for being sick.

Treatment for these maladies was blood letting which was performed by the local 'barber'. The years marched on and demon possession morphed into 'frogs in the liver' or a 'toad living in your spleen'.  The 'Germ' displaced all these with the invention of the very first microscope so the 'demon' now had a physical form that could be identified but the treatment didn't change...just the picture. 

Yet the concept of what a virus or germ was didn't translate into cleanliness which was actually scoffed at for decades as quaint and beneath the doctors concern; even as pelvic inflammatory disease ravaged the female population in the 19th century.  

The doctor who discovered the cause of this epidemic was summarily and systematically ruined by his peers for daring to challenge accepted wisdom which did not believe that washing hands between patients was necessary.  Even though he had proven his theory correct by reducing his cases to near zero by using warm soapy water between patients.   So again we see a noble and brilliant doctor ruined by lesser persons who refused to accept a new and beneficial idea because it made them look bad.  Heaven forbid they learn something new or advance their collective knowledge or be perceived as flawed and imperfect human beings.

Unchallenged and unchecked ignorance is more dangerous than any disease.   So it would seem the germ theory is weak and needs to be reconsidered from a new and less dogmatic viewpoint.   The problem lies however with the true disease facing society, unchallenged arrogance and prolific stupidity of those who believe themselves infallible and above being questioned and who destroy those persons who dare to challenge them and who are often more intelligent.

The true disease today is chronic stupidity of persons who believe they are all knowing and godlike.    Doctors must be humble before nature lest they become a disease themselves.



Tuesday, October 15, 2013

It is time the hatred stop.

Several years ago I was seeing a patient for an acute migraine headache.  The visit unfortunately was rather long, which can happen when a migraine patient is having an acute episode. An acquaintance of the patient had been waiting outside in the car.  She was a red headed woman in her mid to early twenties.  When she came in I noticed a paper towel wrapped around her right hand then I noticed a scowl and a clearly negative energy radiating from her.  Immediately I believed that she was injured and in pain.  When I offered to assist her with a band aide or something her scowl deepened and she let loose with a clearly negative barrage directed at me 'personally'.

 I didn't know this woman from Eve, yet she felt comfortable enough to be rude and insulting.  It was later made known to me that his woman was a physical therapist. Ironically in the past 118 years chiropractic has been the target of the medical community, first from the AMA itself, then there was the psychiatrists, I still don't get that really but for a period we were being bashed quite badly by them and now physical therapists have joined into the fray. Physical therapists have been the most violently hateful group of any we have encountered so far. 

As to why, the reasoning is the same as it has always been, to keep medical control of the health care market. Clearly the PTs being ancillary to medicine have been set on the anti-chiropractic war path by their masters as a means of containing chiropractic.  Basically it is the same battle chiropractic has been fighting for the past century.  It just happens to be a different set of adversaries representing the same old foe, political medicine. 

As PTs do not question their medical masters dependence on drugs it is their desire to use PTs as the means of displacing chiropractic.  As a result the PTs have been told all manner of fairy tales about chiropractic such as mangled spines, stroke and quadriplegia being caused by chiropractors;  The very same stuff my grandmother was told when she was in nursing school in 1928.  She later became a chiropractor after she realized she had been lied to by the people she trusted to tell her the truth.  When she asked them why they had to 'lie' about chiropractic none of them had an answer, none.  They just rebuked her for deciding to become a chiropractor. 

What gets me is these people are supposed to be smart, yet they can't even come up with new or even valid arguments against chiropractic, they have to recycle the old arguments and repeat them over and over and over and over...again to maintain the perception that 'they' are the gurus of health care. Ask yourself why anyone would have to lie to maintain an image of perceived wisdom and authority if what they had to offer was valid? 

So I am pointing this out to you. Making you aware of the fact that chiropractic once again is under fire by yet another stooge profession of the AMA who by the way have a permanent injunction against them for earlier, illegal and equally vile efforts to contain and eliminate chiropractic. Google Wilk Vs. AMA.

In this case the AMA was handed an injunction to cease their anti-competitive behavior against the chiropractic profession by a federal court.  As a result the AMA has had to use a proxy to pursue their intended goal of killing chiropractic, their proxy being the Physical Therapist. 

FYI if a PT attempts to adjust your spine for any reason, understand that he/she/they aren't nearly as qualified as they believe, and their adjusting/manipulating the spine is illegal. And what injuries that have been blamed on chiropractors are most often caused by a PT pretending to be a chiropractor.  They aren't licensed to do anything other than what is prescribed by a qualified physician, which they are not.  Which is likely why they are so violently aggressive and hateful to chiropractors who are licensed physicians with 8 years of college. 

I realize that this is an emotional segment, but as a chiropractor I am tired of the attacks by such hateful miscreant souls who believe they are justified to hate chiropractic because their masters said it was ok.  Their hate of my profession is based on a perception created by a century old war that their masters have been losing. The hatred of chiropractic is not justified and has to stop.  I could understand it better if we were truly dangerous and causing problems, but that is not and has not been the case EVER.  Only stories told to create fear by incompetent, miscreant and godless people. 

Chiropractic is still here with the lowest malpractice premiums in any health care system with a zero death rate.  Think on that.  Why would anyone 'hate' a chiropractor?"

Enough already.