Saw this article and think it relates well to nutrition also.

____________________________________________________
I Beg to Differ :Medical Profession Doesn’t Always Welcome Diversity of Opinion

By Nicholas Regush

Open your mouth against the prevailing medical wisdom and expect to get shot in the knees and even worse. Certainly forget about being honored with free trips to “educational events” in Hawaii.

(And if you’re a journalist, expect to have your work questioned and your credentials challenged — but more on that later.)

If you want a chance at big-time success in medicine, then toe the line and protect the profession against all infidels. That’s the simple recipe that will buy you the dream house.

Democracy in medicine is fast dying. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

Granted, there are always exceptions to the rule. And some with a lot of smarts play both sides of the fence, not to mention their mouths. These political creatures hang on by a thread. Careful: The north wind can be surprising.

Big-Bucks Conformity

How do I know all this? I watch it very closely, that’s how. I’ve been watching free speech in medicine get cut off at the mouth recently, nevermind the throat. Bring in the big industry bucks, wheel in the institutional power and bus in the apologists. Hit squads form quickly. There is valuable intellectual property to protect at all costs. Many dreams to purchase.

Let’s say you are a medical scientist who has wondered, from time to time, whether HIV is really the cause of AIDS or whether AIDS is as simple as one virus. It’s a reasonable question, given that we’re 20 years into the epidemic without much in the way of enduring therapy. But do you really want to express this opinion? Or merely raise the question? If you do, then the new Gestapo will likely pay you a visit. Forget about that government grant. Forget about the raise. You will find yourself marginalized, your reputation smeared and you'll probably be out on the street.

The same will likely happen if you challenge the idea that all vaccines are good for you. So what if emerging data raise serious questions about the potential of vaccines to alter the immune system, particularly of the very young, and in some cases, even trigger body processes that could contribute to a variety of chronic diseases, including diabetes.

Speak and You Shall Pay
When you have been covering medicine for as long as I have, you become aware of a long line of destroyed careers and lives of those who have dared to speak out against the common view. I speak to some of these people every week as I do research for my stories at ABCNEWS.

Medicine has always had its controversies and change has always been slow. But what occurs now far more frequently than, say, a decade ago, I’ve detected, is the attempt to silence those who buck the establishment.

One nasty tactic commonly used by the Orthodox Docs is to accuse the maverick of injuring patients by spreading confusion. For example, those questioning HIV are often said to be enabling unsafe sex or stopping people from taking their numerous medications. Those suggesting that some vaccines are unnecessary and potentially dangerous are said to be leading children to harm or even death.

Media Mea Culpa

As a journalist, I take all this in and I think I see the system for what it is: driven not by the exchange of ideas but by money and the pursuit of power. This mercenary approach is so locked in now, thanks to huge industry control of medical-science financing that the captured rats in the cage, the spokespeople for this enterprise, appear to have lost sight of the maze’s entry point. Talk about a blind spot.

Media often give sustenance to the Grand Monopoly by ignoring people with fresh ideas. Credibility is not measured by what a person actually has to say or the experiments performed. Credibility is what school you went to, where you happen to teach, or the friends you’ve won or perhaps purchased.

From the Mailbag
Which brings me to this column. Each week I receive numerous e-mails. Sometimes they come from doctors or scientists. More often than not, someone in academe wants to trash me. And that’s OK. Keep the ideas flowing, no matter what.

But when I receive a letter that resembles the hit squad mentality often found in medicine these days, I begin to boil. I don’t like to be dismissed offhand as someone who is hurting patients with my points of view just because my ideas don’t necessarily mesh with the mainstream on a particular issue. While many of the medical mavericks don’t have the opportunity to hit back, I do, and when I can, I will.

In my column on antidepressants two weeks ago, I raised questions about the prescription of these drugs to children. I quoted from a widely publicized prepared statement from Dr. Rodrigo Munoz, president of the American Psychiatric Association, which generally endorsed the safety of antidepressants. I questioned this endorsement on the basis of available data, particularly the absence of long-term data.

The Gauntlet Is Thrown

Munoz replied in an e-mail that my remarks were not only outdated, but that I was contributing to the harm of patients, their families and society by reinforcing old ideas about mental illness. Frankly, I’m still not clear on exactly what he was carping about. But I do know that instead of taking me on intellectually, he was doing what so many people in medicine do these days: He was trying to dismiss me as someone who harms patients.

I usually let this type of accusation blow off in the breeze, but not this time. I’m tired of this underhanded method of silencing people. I’m tired of watching doctors hide behind their patients. So I have officially challenged Munoz to a public debate. This way, we shall be able to determine exactly how he deals with serious questions about antidepressant drugs.


Will Munoz agree to the debate? So far, it looks like he might. Stay tuned.

(And stay tuned as well to discussions of HIV and vaccine policy in future columns!)

http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/...opinion_40.html