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34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
TELLS IT LIKE IT IS, May 9, 2004
I could have wished for better, more focused writing, as this book wanders around a lot -- but Dr. Carter provides plenty of examples of useful therapies that we don't get to try because Big Pharma can't profit from them. He shows how our "free enterprise" medicine is driven by profit and how large special-interest organizations (drug companies, insurance companies, government agencies, big bucks charities and especially, the AMA) determine what kind of treatments are considered "legitimate." He shows how the government's requirements for testing new (and old, but never "scientifically" tested)) treatments, along with the almost fanatic belief in double-blind trials keeps good therapies from public use. Many other countries sanction these therapies, but in the US, allopathic medicine - led by the AMA -has a virtual monopoly on providing health care. Since Dr. Carter wrote this book, the situation has improved a bit for alternative treatments, but overall, health care in the US is stagnant and disastrously expensive. If we had a system where the incentives were for delivery of good, cost-effective care for everyone, we would get fewer bypass operations, take fewer pills, and get fewer high-tech tests. But we'd be much better off as a society than we are with our bloated, overpriced profit-driven health care environment that mainly benefits big drug and insurance companies and highly-paid providers and executives. The most shocking revelation in the book is how local medical societies team up with government to persecute providers who use unorthodox treatments. The medical profession claims it uses hearings to weed out bad doctors, but it seems these local medical societies mostly go after doctors who might have a treatment (like EDTA chelation) that doesn't cost enough. AMA doctors, hospitals, and even insurance companies would rather do a $30,000 operation than let someone suffering from clogged arteries have a $3000 treatment. We Americans pay obscene (and unsustainable) amounts of money for health insurance only to be denied payment for treatments we may choose for ourselves. These denials of payment and persecutions of pratitioners are the actions of a monopoly protecting its own financial interest. When will the American people demand a change? Wake up, America! You do not have the best medical care in the world, just the most expensive.
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