How to raise a Healthy Child #3

HOW TO RAISE A HEALTHY CHILD #3

by the late Robert S. Mendelsohn M.D.

Continued from previous page:

raised about commonly prescribed drugs, most doctors pay no
attention to them. The manufacturers of several of the drugs
doctors most frequently prescribe for children have been ordered
by the FDA to offer proof that they are safe and effective or
remove them from the market. The manufacturers have been sparring
with the FDA for years, while still selling these drugs. In most
instances they have yet to come up with proof that these drugs
are any good, yet doctors keep right on prescribing them. I'm not
talking about a handful of drugs but-literally-hundreds of them.
It seems almost incredible, but American parents spend millions
of dollars every year on drugs that their doctors have prescribed
without any evidence that the drugs are effective or safe or,
worse, in the face of responsible allegations that they are not.
Of the 30 drugs labeled ineffective by the FDA that were most
frequently prescribed in 1979, more than half-including the top
three-are often prescribed for children. Those on the list
include Dimetapp, Actifed, Donnatal, Ornade Spansules, Phenergan
Expectorant, Tuss-Ornade, Phenergan VC Expectorant with Codeine,
Actifed C Expectorant, Bentyl, Phenergan Expectorant Plain,
Benylin Cough Syrup, Marax and Marax DF, Dimetane Expectorant,
Ambenyl Expectorant, Dimetane Expectorant DC, and Teldrin. Next
time your doctor prescribes one of them for your child, ask him
why he is using a drug that the manufacturer has been unable to
defend as doing any good.

During the early years of my practice, when I was still naive
enough to believe what they had taught me in medical school, I
was guilty of the same sort of behavior. During my pediatric
residency I was taught to use x-rays to treat the tonsils, acne,
ringworm of the scalp, and enlarged lymph and thymus glands. No
one told me that I need to have any concern about the long-term
consequences of this treatment, nor did it occur to me to
question whether I might be causing my patients future harm.

In those days I took everything on faith and expected my patients
to do likewise. I'm ashamed of that now and suspicious of every
new medical fad, because those x-ray treatments were responsible
for a virtual epidemic of thyroid cancer among patients subjected
to them. The damage that was done is still being discovered every
day. Even more tragic is the fact that in the case of enlarged
lymph and thymus glands, we were treating nonailments. Their size
ultimately diminished without treatment, in the natural order of
things.

Who knows what the future consequences will be of the things
pediatric residents are being taught today? They, are learning to
use bilirubin lights to treat infant jaundice, tympanostomy for
ear infections, antibiotics for almost everything, hormones to
control growth, powerful drugs to modify child behavior, and
other drugs, tests, immunizations, and procedures whose long-term
effects are unknown. The consequences have yet to be fully
revealed, but if you reexamine the previous disasters that litter
the path of "medical progress" you can be sure they will be many
and tragic.

If there is a given about medical practice, it is that doctors
don't seem to learn anything from their mistakes and that most of
them seem oblivious to the basic tenet of the Hippocratic oath,
"First, do no harm." Doctors do a lot of . harm, but the very
structure of their medical education over time makes them
insensitive to the harm that they do.

"We want our doctors to be caring and sensitive," Daniel
Borenstein, of the UCLA School of Medicine, said recently, "but
if they are overly caring, it's difficult for them to continue to
function. Throughout medical school there's a hardening of the
spirit."

The pediatric resident may become quite skilled in certain
mechanical procedures frequently performed in hospitals, such as
inserting needles into veins and arteries, performing spinal
taps, and even inserting tracheal and bronchial tubes. However,
these skills diminish rapidly after he leaves the hospital and stops using them.
Within a year or two, you can't depend on him to retain many of the skills
he learned. Fortunately for him, and for his patients, it doesn't
make much difference because he rarely needs to use them. They
were typically learned while treating children in pediatric
clinics who were the victims of economic deprivation, inadequate
hygiene, and poor nutrition and consequently suffered ailments
rarely seen in middle-class or affluent pediatric practices.
Since most pediatricians go where the money is, there isn't much
chance that they'll continue to treat poor children when they
enter private practice. In fact, most of the time they'll be
treating kids who don't need treatment because they aren't
seriously ill.

WHAT DOCTORS ARE TAUGHT TO DO ABOUT MISTAKES

As part of my preparation for entering private practice I was
taught during my pediatric residency what to do if I made a
terrible mistake. I wasn't told what to tell the parents of the
child so that they could handle their grief more adequately, nor
was I given any ethical standards to adhere to. Instead, I was
admonished to call my malpractice insurance carrier immediately
and let him tell me how to proceed. If I had to say anything
publicly about a grievous-perhaps fatal-error, the magic phrase
was, "What happened to this poor child was one in a million."
That's why, when something goes wrong, you'll often hear a doctor
say, "It was one in a million." In Toronto there was the famous
case of Stephen Yuz, who entered the Hospital for Sick Children
and was diagnosed as having psychological vomiting. He died some
days later from an intestinal obstruction. It was one in a
million, of course, as was the death of a Chicago child as the
result of an asthma test.

I have attempted, in this chapter, to dissuade you from having
blind faith in your pediatrician and to point out that when you
seek medical attention that your child doesn't really need you
may expose him to greater risks. Medical attention should be your
last resort-not your first-when your child is sick. The vast
majority of childhood illnesses will respond to natural bodily
defenses, fortified by your own skills, loving attention, and
common sense.
..........

THIS IS A BLOCK-BUSTER OF A BOOK.

IF YOU HAVE YOUNG CHILDREN OR ARE PLANNING TO START A FAMILY, 
***YOU NEED TO HAVE THIS  BOOK ***
AND THE BOOK  "CONFESSIONS OF A MEDICAL HERETIC "

BY THE LATE DR.ROBERT S. MENDELSOHN
..........