Sorry, if you can sum it up in a paragraph, I don't have time to read it.
On Tue, 29 Aug 2000, J. Walter Plinge wrote:
>
> Dear Judi
>
> Thank you for your concern about . . . uuuum - whatever it is that you are
> concerned about. I'm just wondering. I wrote a satyrical article about Prozac
> and you made some vague objections. When I explained my article, you responded
> with two additional letters, neither of which addressed any specific ideas in my
> response or my original article.
>
> Are you feeling alright?
>
> As you said, my two years involvement in the medical field is "anecdotal" while
> your 20 years qualifies you as an expert. I have little doubt that you are good
> at what you do. My personal experience has been that it is difficult to find a
> dumb nurse. On the other hand it is easy to find a naive nurse. While you were
> cloistered for 20 years in your clinic I crossed the US four times, studying and
> writing about the whole spectrum of the American Condition in real life. I'll
> wager that I have dealt with more mentally unbalanced or clinically insane
> people than you; after all, you only see the ones who come to your office.
>
> Actually you did give a passing nod, to my objection that American medicine
> treats only Symptoms and not Causes with, "Treating the causes is, in itself,
> not enough...." implying that the Causes are being fully addressed and only when
> necessary are the drugs handed out. Judi, get serious. Prescription drugs today
> are a hot item in clinics as well as on the stock market. They are the first
> line of defense in hospitals. According to BBC radio and the Seattle Times, the
> 5th biggest cause of death in US hospitals is prescription drugs - they are
> handed out virtually at random and, what is more disturbing, nobody is testing
> the consequences of combining two or more of the 10,000 new chemicals produced
> each year.
>
> I know that you as an individual don't have a large voice in national matters
> but you could get out a bit more and inform yourself. Read a good book, like,
> "When Corporatiions Rule the World," by David Korten... or "No Thanks Uncle
> Sam," by Noel Mamere. Mamere's book is in French so if you can't find a
> translation, maybe I can help you out.
>
> And remember, you belong to an organization that has considerable clout: the
> AMA. How active is the AMA in promoting research on multiple-chemical effects?
>
> Last I heard, some 10% of the US population was on Prozac. Whether that figure
> is actually 8% or 20% is not the point; whatever the figure is, it is a LOT. And
> it excludes all the other behavior modifying drugs. The suggestion that humans
> suffer from a genetic deficiency of Prozac in their bloodstreams is just nutty.
> Some years ago Harper's magazine cited an executive of a pill making corporation
> as predicting that by 2020, 80% of the US population would be on "corrective"
> drug treatment like Prozac. It may be dificult to underestimate the gullibility
> of the American public but some people are going to extremes to put that to
> the test.
> How does the AMA stand on the subject of mind altering drugs for everyone?
>
> My local grocery store's (Shopi, in France) tv guide advises parents "Too much
> time in front of the tv can provoke sleeping disorders and increased agression."
> Sweden does not permit any advertizing aimed at children (on tv or anywhere,
> and that includes the Saturday and Sunday morning cartoon/infomercials). The
> harmful effects of tv are well known in many countries, but in the US, where
> some 20 corporations control 80% of the media - that's radio, tv, magazines, and
> newspapers - the story goes unreported. What is the AMA stand on unlimited tv
> for kids? What is the AMA's stand on censorship of health issues?
>
> When I visit my dentist for an appointment I routinely find the waiting room
> empty. That is because the person who is scheduled for an appointment, is
> already in the chair. Can it be that the French have mastered the waiting
> room technology? Or is it a comment on the American lack of self respect
> that they will put up with 2-3 hour waits. Does the AMA view long
> waits as a productive and beneficial part of health care?
>
> According to Molly Ivins, the US federal government recently launched a
> regimen of paying med schools for NOT training doctors. Does having
> fewer doctors have any impact on the time patients spend in waiting
> rooms? Will this help uninsured people get access to less costly medical
> care? How does the AMA feel about reduced costs for poor people such as
> permitting Africans to produce their own generic AIDS drugs and paying
> a reduced fee to patent holders? How would Hippocrates feel about the
> richest country in the world witholding medicine from the poor?
>
> In 1999, the British Parliament banned the sale of vitamine B-6 in doses over
> 10mg (later overturned to avoid a riot in the health-food sector) as part of an
> on-going attempt by drug manufacturers to make the sale of vitimins and dietary
> suppliments prescription only, and to close down their competitors, the natural
> food outlets. How does the AMA support the natural foods industry? I understand
> that there is only one med school in the US, in Texas, that teaches nutrition;
> it has a single four hour course. What is the view of the AMA on the value of a
> good diet and what activities are they involved in to promote healthy food?
>
> MK-Ultra, the 1960s CIA operation, focused on mind control through drugs; what
> were their findings? Which drugs did they find were most effective? How does the
> AMA stand on mind control issues? What specific social programs and community
> activities are your patients who take Prozac involved in? Does Prozac help
> patients take part in making changes in their lives and in the society around
> them or does it simply erase the desire for change?
>
> The US has the most expensive health care in the world, and, while European,
> Cuban, South American, Canadian and Asian universal health care plans prove
> less costly, Americans lead the world in obesity and consumption of behavior
> modifying drugs. How does the AMA feel about universal health care?
>
> In the US, marijuana is classified as a 'Class A' drug along with heroin, and
> while it has not caused a single death it is deemed to be dangerous enough to
> jail some 250,000 people for using it. Meanwhile melanoma sufferers go without.
> How many patients would not need Prozac if marijuana was available? How is the
> AMA combatting this anomaly?
>
> My experience is that, in all of the above questions, the AMA's stance is
> foresquare in support of a vital and vigourous corporate bottom line. The AMA
> gives not a damn for its patients. While you spend all your time with your
> professional work and your patients, and presumably spend your liesure
> time with your broker, you cannot see, or will not see
> (none so blind as those . . .) the rest of the world.
>
> Of course, this "science for profit" as Robert Bowd put it, is the same
> enterprise that replaced opium with heroin because heroin was "not addictive."
> Then when heroin addiction was unveiled, they gave us morphine because morphine
> is "not addictive." Another lie, but not to worry because soon they invented
> Methdone which was "not addictive." We fell for it again; it appears that
> nobody really tested Methdone because it has been found to be addictive. Now the
> miracle of modern science has given us ABT594, a pain killer cobbed from a
> frog in Ecuador, ''200 times stronger than morphine'' and guess what; it's "not
> addictive." Why am I skeptical.
>
> Please, if you cannot address the specific concerns listed above, don't bother
> responding.
>
> JWP
>
>
