Book Review

Malignant Medical Myths

Why medical treatment causes 200,000
deaths in the USA each year, and how to
protect yourself

Joel M. Kauffman; West Conshohocken, PA: Infinity, 2006;

ii + 326 pages.

In this eye-opening and meticulously documented book, Dr Joel Kauffman presents a damning critique of
mainstream medicine in the United States. The US spends $2 trillion per year on healthcare, about
$7000 per person, yet it buys almost the poorest care among developed countries, with at least 200,000
deaths per year from medical treatment. Based on a thorough review of the professional literature,
Kauffman shows that official advice on screening tests, drugs, diet, exercise, alcohol, radiation, and
water fluoridation is often wrong and commercially motivated, that clinical trials are often slanted, and that
sickness is created to sell treatments.

There is compelling evidence that treatment with some of the best-selling prescription drugs fails to
prolong life or improve its quality in many of the people who take them. This includes anticholesterol
drugs, blood pressure drugs, and most anticancer drugs used for chemotherapy. Over 90% of drugs only
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 work in 30 to 50% of the people taking them. However, if medical providers fail to follow official
guidelines for diagnosis and treatment or if they use an alternative treatment, they may be threatened
with lawsuits for malpractice or suffer ostracism or even delicensing.

Schering-Plough, one of worlds biggest drug companies, is known to send doctors unsolicited cheques
for $10,000; in return they are invited to sign an attached consulting agreement requiring them to
prescribe the companys medicines. Johnson & Johnson, Wyeth, and Bristol-Myers Squibb have made
similar enticements. Giant pharmaceutical companies peddle biased information on drugs and tests,
and pay academics to give papers at international conferences, reporting favourable results from drugs
trials. Respected reporters and commentators often owe part of their salaries to corporations whose
products they endorse.

As Kauffman demonstrates in great detail, articles in peer-reviewed medical journals cant necessarily
be trusted. It is usually only the information contained in the abstracts of such articles that receives
publicity. But abstracts are often incomplete and misleading. For instance, many people taking part in
drug trials tend to drop out because of side-effects, but this information rarely finds its way into the
abstract. You would be appalled to find how often only favorable results are cited in an abstract, says
Kauffman (pp. 8-9). One of the favourite types of phoney evidence results from selection bias i.e. the
inclusion of all studies that support ones biases, and omission of some or all that do not. Reviewers of
articles submitted for publication are supposed to be independent of the financial sources of the authors
and their peers in expertise. Many are, says Kauffman, but considerable trading of favors and behind-
the-scenes pressures must occur to lead to the publication of so many poorly written, or well-written yet
misleading papers (p. 5).

US government cholesterol guidelines, which promote more and more aggressive use of cholesterol-
lowering drugs, were prepared by drug experts, many involved with drug manufacturers, without any
government supervision or approval. During the advisory committee meetings held by the Food & Drug
Administration (FDA) to discuss the safety and efficacy of two new drugs for diabetes, one-third of the
committees nine members had financial ties with the drug manufacturers that submitted the new drug
applications or with their competitors. Staff at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are allowed to
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 engage in lucrative private consulting deals with drugs companies. One university professor who
reviewed two dozen treatments for psychiatric disorders favoured three of the treatments he stood to
profit from based on his consultancy ties. University or medical school researchers cannot be trusted
either, due to the influence of their commercial sponsors. Researchers who publish findings unfavourable
to the sponsor have been threatened with loss of funding, lawsuits, blacklisting from future contracts, or
loss of employment.

Drugs trials are often flawed. A favourite trick is to test drugs on healthy male adults, then use the result to
prescribe for women, children, and the elderly as well. Trials of tests, devices, and drugs often fail to
compare the results with earlier work, or with competitors drugs, and only the studies with the most
favourable results are publicized. Companies routinely delay or prevent publications that show their
drugs to be ineffective. A majority of studies on Zoloft, an antidepressant drug, showed it to be no better
than placebo (i.e. sugar pills). In 1990, more than a decade after antiarrhythmic drugs had been
introduced, it was estimated that they were killing more Americans every year than had died in action in
the Vietnam War. The tendency of Big Pharma to publish only drug trial results which are positive is so
pervasive and misleading that Spain has made it mandatory to publish the result of all clinical trials run in
that country.

Randomized clinical trials (RCTs) are essential: this means that half the subjects receive the genuine
drug, operation, or treatment and the other half a fake version (placebo), without being told which group
they belong to. Positive results typically occur in 30 to 50% of subjects in the placebo group, and a
significantly higher percentage of the subjects in the other group must show positive results if the
treatment in question is to be considered genuinely beneficial. Clinical trials with no control or placebo
groups are automatically suspect.

Many drugs have side-effects underplayed in the trial results presented to the FDA, which does not test
drugs and devices itself but merely examines the test results the manufacturers choose to offer.
Kauffman writes:

Many interventions are justified on conveniently measured parameters, such as bone density,
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 cholesterol level, EKGs, and blood pressure. In all of these cases, examples exist in which
the intervention improved the easily measured symptom, called the surrogate endpoint, such
as lowering blood pressure, yet worsened the primary endpoint of heart attack, bone fracture,
or death. One extreme example was the use of antiarrhythmic drugs. Success was shown
by altered EKGs (electrocardiograms), but the drugs caused sudden cardiac death.
Conversely, the FDA has sometimes been a ferocious obstructor of effective and nontoxic
alternative treatments ... (p. 4)

Treatments are often claimed to reduce the relative risk for some condition by a certain percentage. For
instance: Take this treatment and your chances of a heart attack will drop by 50%. Kauffman says that
this is a major method used to perpetuate todays medical myths on diet, blood pressure control,
cholesterol control, annual mammograms, and many other subjects. This is because any reduction in the
relative risk of some condition, however large, may pale into insignificance when the absolute risk is
considered. For example, saying that taking a particular drug for 10 years cuts the relative risk of
acquiring a sickness by 50% sounds impressive. But this could mean that your absolute risk of acquiring
a sickness is reduced from 2 in a million to 1 in a million. Seen in these terms, the improvement is
negligible, and if the treatment is highly expensive and has adverse side-effects, it would be advisable to
avoid it.

The following is a typical example of unreliable medical advice: A 54-year-old English literature teacher
at Oxford University was diagnosed with multiple myeloma and told to begin chemotherapy within a week
otherwise he would be dead within a year. He was told that chemotherapy would enable him to live up to
two or three years longer. After seeking other opinions on the value of chemotherapy, he refused it in
favour of a combination of alternatives. Eight years later he was still alive and employed.

* * *

A brief summary of the malignant medical myths that Kauffman explodes is given below.

Myth 1: Taking an aspirin a day forever will make you live longer.
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 Careful review of the available literature shows that aspirin is neither a safe nor effective way of treating
congestive heart failure. Occasional use of aspirin for headache and arthritis pain should not cause
serious side-effects, but more than occasional use can hurt you. Studies have shown that four
supplements vitamin E, magnesium, certain omega-3 fatty acids, and coenzyme Q10 each provide
much greater long-term benefits than aspirin, and all have fewer side-effects. Yet mainstream physicians
are far more likely to recommend aspirin, because it was introduced by a giant pharmaceutical company
that is still around Bayer and is advertised more than all four supplements together.

Myth 2: Low-carbohydrate diets are unsafe and ineffective for losing weight.

The truth is that the advice from every government agency and most non-profit foundations to eat low-fat
diets, especially low in saturated fat and cholesterol, is utterly baseless, and results in immense suffering
and costs. Much of the evidence for low-fat (high-carb) diets, Kauffman concludes, is a result of poorly
designed studies, misinterpretation, exaggeration, and outright fraud (p. 73). The safety of low-carb
diets, on the other hand, is well established and there is indisputable evidence that they contribute to
weight loss and help prevent the complications of diabetes. Evidence for the benefits of low-carb diets is
even found in journal articles claiming to provide evidence of the opposite once their actual data are
studied and not just the misleading abstracts.

Myth 3: Using cholesterol-lowering drugs, especially the statins, would benefit nearly everyone.

Kauffman shows that the basis for using cholesterol-lowering drugs is pure mythology. Low cholesterol
levels are dangerous; high ones usually are not. Clinical trials of statin drugs indicate no worthwhile
overall benefit for primary prevention of heart attacks, but a high risk of debilitating side-effects; 75% of
people stop taking them within two years. Any hype for alternative cholesterol-lowering treatments is
fraudulent since there is usually no reason for lowering cholesterol levels. The only thing we can be
absolutely certain of, says Kauffman, is that lowering everyones cholesterol produces the incredible
profits realized by the pharmaceutical industry (p. 79).

Myth 4: Nearly everyone over 50 should take drugs for high blood pressure.
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 Blood pressure increases naturally with age, and is higher in women than in men of the same age. It is
very low blood pressure that is dangerous. Using drugs to forcibly lower blood pressure by dilating
arteries or veins, weakening the heart, or increasing urination rarely does anything of overall value. Only
people with very high blood pressures (the top 10%) would obtain any benefit at all from antihypertensive
drugs, and this would be minor as well as accompanied by severe side-effects. The side-effects are so
bad that 20 to 60% of people stop taking the drugs within three years.

Medical textbooks are warring about the right blood-pressure levels, and new national standards come
out every few years placing the target values ever lower. Kauffman asks: Is good medical practice
fueling this war or might it just be the multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical industry? For to lower the target
value 5 points on the BP scale can mean $billions more in drug sales (p. 110).

Myth 5: A drink a day keeps the doctor away.

Kauffman writes: There is no evidence that moderate drinking of any common alcoholic beverage has
worthwhile health benefits overall. ... If you do not already enjoy beer, wine or spirits, there is no reason
for you to begin drinking in a vain attempt to obtain longer life (p. 142). It is worth noting that when well-
known researchers claim in national journals that we can reduce the probability of dying from a heart
attack by 60% simply by drinking wine regularly, this wins the author of the article a life-long supply of
wine from appreciative manufacturers!

Myth 6: Exercise! Run for your life! No pain, no gain!

Evidence shows that strenuous activities e.g. fast dancing, running, jogging, handball, squash, tennis,
long-distance cycling, and heavy weight lifting can be dangerous and damaging. The first marathon
was performed by Pheidippides in 490 BCE. He ran 42 km from Marathon to Athens to carry the news of
the victory of the Greeks over the Persians. What is rarely mentioned is that after delivering his message,
he dropped dead!

Strenuous exercise may indeed lead to arrhythmias that produce sudden death in some individuals.
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 Instead of preventing cardiovascular disease and congestive heart failure extreme aerobics such as
running and marathon cycling appears to cause them. Knee problems, stress fractures of bones, and
joint problems affect a majority of those doing strenuous exercise for years. The mantra No pain, no
gain ought to be changed to More pain, more risk.

On the other hand, moderate exercise, such as walking, gardening, swimming, slow dancing, yoga, tai
chi, light weight lifting, mild calisthenics, and the use of exercise machines will make those who enjoy the
activity feel better and possibly even live a little longer. The important thing is to heed your bodys stress
messages.

Myth 7: EDTA chelation therapy for atherosclerosis is ineffective, dangerous and a fraud.

This alternative therapy involves administering EDTA (a weak, synthetic amino acid related to vinegar)
into the veins. The truth is that this biochemically simple procedure retards or reverses atherosclerosis,
prevents cancer, lowers blood pressure, and increases pain-free walking distance. Some 50 clinical
trials have shown that it has an extraordinary 87% success rate, even though no one knows exactly how it
works. Yet it is vigorously opposed and vilified by mainstream medicine and the pharmaceutical industry,
which have resorted to rigged trials and deliberate manipulation of clinical data to support their views.
There is simply far more money to be made from orthodox treatments such as coronary bypass surgery
and angioplasties. As Kauffman says, Discouraging sick people from undergoing an effective treatment
such as EDTA chelation is despicable (p. 176).

Myth 8: All ionizing radiation is dangerous except when an oncologist delivers it.

Contrary to the popular dogma that any amount of ionizing radiation causes cancer, there is
overwhelming evidence that small doses of radiation actually prevent cancer by stimulating the bodys
natural defences. This is known as radiation hormesis, but it is ignored by the authorities. Not only is
typical background radiation harmless, it is actually beneficial, and is usually less than the optimum
amount. Kauffman concludes that small leaks from nuclear power plants or radioisotopes in transit, and
small doses from radon in homes and from most medical imaging techniques are harmless and probably
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 beneficial. People are now paying money to enter caves with radon-laced atmospheres for the purpose
of helping their cancers and arthritis, and they are doing so because they find that it works
(www.radonmine.com). Radon may well be one of mankinds oldest therapies; in Europe, the use of hot
springs with high radon content dates back some 6000 years.

Kauffman says that hysteria about low-dose ionizing radiation has been fed by overzealous
environmentalism.

This has led to needless expense both in dwellings and workplaces, resistance to nuclear
power plants, as well as avoidance of exposure to beneficial medical procedures utilizing
low-dose radiation. ...
The scare over low radon levels, combined with the lawfully mandated remediation cost is
one of the most arrant frauds ever perpetrated on an innocent public in the radiation
protection field by self-serving health-scare professionals. (p. 198)

Myth 9: Annual mammograms and follow-up treatment prolong life.

The hard facts about mammograms are these: In an average group of 1000 women aged 40-50, eight
will have breast cancer. Seven of the positives will be found by mammograms, the other one will be
missed. Of the 992 women who do not have breast cancer, 70 will be wrongly identified as positive on
the basis of mammograms. In other words, out of the total of 77 positives discovered by the
mammography programme, only seven (i.e. 9%) will be correct. The only reason that mammography has
become so entrenched is because mass cancer screening with follow-up and treatment is big business.
Kauffman writes:

The pain of mammograms is not accompanied by the gain of any lifespan. Undergoing
annual mammography does not improve all-cause mortality after a diagnosis of breast
cancer. The most careful examination of mammography trials does not even support a lower
breast cancer mortality. If there is a lower breast cancer mortality, some of it may be
attributed to the hormetic effect of the Xrays used in mammography. Another reasonable
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 explanation is that aggressive treatment of the many false positives from mammography ... is
replacing cancer deaths with deaths from treatment. (pp. 216-7)

Myth 10: Cancer treatments are better than ever, and have cure rates of 60%.

Cancer experts claim current treatments have a 60% success rate, but this should not be confused with
a true cure rate. What they mean is that 60% of those treated will still be alive five years after diagnosis.
But even this modest progress is the result of earlier and earlier diagnosis with very little improvement
due to the benefit of mainstream treatments. The five-year survival rate has been called the worlds most
misleading number. In clinical trials, a control patient dying of any cause is counted as a failure of
nontreatment, whereas a patient who dies just before a treatment programme is completed is not
counted as a failure of treatment, on the grounds that the patient had not completed the treatment
programme!

Kauffman says that professional scaremongers, especially pseudo-environmentalists, have caused

alarm with their claim that the total number of new cancer cases is at an all-time high in industrialized
countries, and that most of the increase in cancer is caused by pesticides or other pollutants. When
cancers due to smoking are removed, the age- and smoking-adjusted rate actually shows a 33% drop
since 1950.

There is no epidemic of cancer at present except lung and malignant melanoma (skin
cancer). The former is due to smoking and the latter, possibly, to too much UVA from
sunlight, often caused by overexposure despite UVB protection from sunblock, which
makes things worse by preventing vitamin D formation in the skin.
Since there is no epidemic of cancers of the gastrointestinal tract or other places where
certain foods, pesticides or pollutants would be expected to manifest themselves, these
factors can hardly be major causes of these types of cancers. (p. 254)

It is beyond dispute that mammography in women and the test for prostate cancer in men with no
symptoms have no overall benefit. And since the treatments for lung and pancreatic cancer are so poor,
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 theres not much use being screened and finding out early that you have one of them.

The five-year survival rate was cleverly chosen to mask the delayed destructive effects of radiation and
chemotherapy. Highly toxic chemotherapeutic drugs kill all rapidly dividing cells in the body, which means
not only cancer cells, but also many kinds of healthy cells, including those of the immune system.
Mainstream treatments often provide only a few weeks to months more of poor-quality life. Some
alternative treatments work well enough to cause complete remisssions, but are not always available in
the US.

Myth 11: Water fluidation prevents tooth decay in children and is perfectly safe.

In the US, sodium fluoride, which is still sold today as rat poison, began to be added to drinking water in
1945, supposedly to prevent tooth decay in children. This provided corporations and federal government
agencies with a convenient way of disposing of fluoridated waste products. Fluoridation of drinking water
continues in 60% of public water supplies in the US today. Much of Australia, Canada, Ireland, and New
Zealand have fluoridated water, but most developed non-English-speaking countries have rejected this
practice as nonbeneficial and probably harmful.

Studies reported in the past 15 years indicate only possible slight benefits from water fluoridation for the
deciduous teeth of five-year-old children. There is no decay reduction in older children and adults
according to studies by researchers who are not supported by organizations that benefit financially from
fluoridation. Kauffman writes:

Proponents of fluoridation have censored most mass media, ignored intelligent discussion of
fluoridation, slandered most opponents of fluoridation, and overturned legal judgments
against fluoridation in a manner that demonstrates their political power. Many published
studies that had conclusions favoring fluoridation were later found unsupported by their raw
data. ... Such studies are still quoted regardless.
There is evidence that fluoridation increases the incidence of cancer, hip fractures, joint
problems, and that it damages both teeth and bones by causing fluorosis. (p. 274)
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 Over a hundred other problems have been linked to fluoride exposure, one of the most serious being low
thyroid gland function.

Kauffman says that opponents have weakened their case against fluoridation by condemning all
organofluorine compounds, some of which are toxic, but many of which are beneficial, such as teflon.

* * *

In his concluding chapter, Kauffman stresses that although the US has the most expensive medical care
in the world, it certainly doesnt have the healthiest and longest-lived population. In fact, it ranks only 15th
among 25 industrialized nations in matters of health. Moreover, there are at least 225,000 premature
deaths per year in the US from medical care (known as iatrogenic deaths), half of them from FDA-
approved drugs used according to instructions. This makes mortality from treatment the third biggest
cause of death in the US after cardiovascular disease and cancer! Other sources argue that the real
figure for iatrogenic deaths could be as high as 786,000 equivalent to six jumbo jets falling out of the
sky every day.

Kauffman concludes there is too much surgery in the US, and too many screening tests are carried out; if
there is no satisfactory treatment for a condition, as with most cancers, there is little point having a test
done. Too many drugs are prescribed, including many of the best-sellers such as antinflammatory,
anticholesterol, antihypertensive, and antidepressant drugs. A fifth of hospitalizations occur because of
the adverse effects of drugs, and cost more than the drugs themselves. In addition, too many antibiotics
are prescribed for non-bacterial infections.

No one is allowed to die a natural death free from the adverse effects of FDA-approved, yet unproven
treatment:

The typical 70-year-old USA citizen takes about 7 prescription drugs daily, of which none are
really a benefit in most cases, and 5 merely deal with the adverse effects of the other 2. ...
[M]edical myths have made normal aging expensive, debilitating and depressing. (p. 280)
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 A disturbing development is that the UNs Codex Alimentarius Commission, which has strong ties with
the World Trade Organization and multinational corporations, is planning to ban all non-prescription
sales of vitamins and supplements, even though many are of great value in preventing and treating some
important conditions, as well as being low cost. Kaufmann calls this a Codex-driven pharmaceutical
takeover of the natural products industry. In Canada, for example, possession of DHEA, a harmless and
valuable supplement, is now a felony, carrying the same penalty as crack cocaine.

As Codex continues its march, herbs are increasingly classed as drugs with restricted
access. ... This is designed to assist drug companies in their technology of PharmaPrinting,
which produces versions of herbs that will be standardised and patented by drug companies
and approved by government regulators as drugs. (p. 283)

There is a fortune to be made by multinational drug companies that obtain a monopoly over the
manufacture and sale of life-sustaining natural products. It has been estimated that if the Codex
Commission is allowed to obstruct the eradication of heart disease by restricting access to nutritional
supplements, more than 12 million people worldwide will continue to die every year from premature heart
attacks and strokes.

Kauffman criticizes the way powerful commercial interests and the government agencies they control
routinely debunk all forms of alternative medicine. Although the promoters of alternative treatments are
sometimes even less scientific than mainstream promoters, there are some valuable alternatives
available.

An extensive list of recommended books and websites is given at the end of Kauffmans engaging book.

by David Pratt. June 2006.

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