Sep 18, 2009

American Sickcare

Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has made the interview rounds recently talking about the H1N1 (swine) flu vaccine. On PBS’s News Hour, he stressed the importance of making the vaccine available soon since the H1N1 flu is already spreading. He ominously added that a recent outbreak at WSU had sickened 2000 students.

The doctor didn’t include any details of that outbreak but we can safely assume that if there had been any deaths or serious complications he would have told us. In fact, as the Seattle Times reports: “Most suffered only mild illnesses, but two non-students — an adult and a teen — were briefly hospitalized.”

According to Dr. Fauci, they plan to spend $2 billion on the H1N1 vaccine. They will be recommending it for college students since several of the deaths from the spring outbreak of H1N1 were from that demographic. Fauci implied that it was bad luck for the WSU students that the flu hit before the vaccine was ready.

But they didn’t need it! A group of 2000 contacted the flu and recovered easily and without complications. For far less money than we’re spending on a vaccine we could send a team of medical researchers to conduct interviews of the school population, looking into diet, lifestyle, stressors, environmental conditions, and responses to the flu outbreak to draw out any differences between those who never got sick, those who got sick and easily recovered, and those who developed more serious complications.

At the end of such a study, we would have a clear set of wellness strategies to share with the country, far more effective for most people than any vaccine.

Dr Fauci would no doubt leap on the words “most people” and point out that 40,000 people die of regular flu every year, that hundreds died from H1N1 in the Spring, and that vaccines are life-savers for at-risk populations — children, the elderly, and those with compromised immune systems.

But even when tens of thousands die, millions do not. Even among at-risk populations, survivors outnumber victims.

Yet our medical strategy for infectious diseases is invariably based on the seriously-sick minority. We develop our vaccines and other pharmaceuticals with an eye toward helping the least healthy among us and then we recommend, or even mandate, those medicines for everyone.

This is just nuts. We’ve developed a medical model based on the dissection of cadavers and study of pathologies while ignoring the flesh and blood lessons of the most healthy among us. We devote enormous resources to managing symptoms and show little interest in the innate human capacity for self-healing.

Worse, through the mandating of vaccinations, we are undermining that innate healing capacity, pushing more and more people into at-risk populations.

The more we practice this American sickcare, the sicker we get.

Michael Sky | CommonHealth