https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...united-states/
https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-ap...ath.jpg&w=1484
Funny, I didn't see acupuncture or Chinese medicine on this list :p
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...united-states/
https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-ap...ath.jpg&w=1484
Funny, I didn't see acupuncture or Chinese medicine on this list :p
Starting this new thread to balance out the "Complementary Medicine Fails".
Convention (allopathic) medicine is not a failure, per se, as its public health methodology does make a difference in the "developed" world and "not so developed" world but it is USA where the profit incentive distorts and amortizes/financialises health for greed and market share. In most indices, USA is not in the top 10! In USA, (Flint, MI) clean water is not a right so that tell you where the rest of stuff is:D
Dig dis! US pioneered vaccination as a way to forestall disease but now more "3rd world countries" are using that to make a difference while USA (many vocal citizens!)thinks it is a negative to vaccinate! Just sayin':confused:
For that to happen it would, you know, actually need to have an affect to begin with.
At any rate,
So if we're going to go ahead and define medical error as nearly any **** thing under the sun, we can also go ahead and lump all those instances of individuals dying do to cancer complications upon the shoulders of TCM. Because you know, its not just a coincidence that Taiwan has the highest rate of upper urinary tract cancer in the world.Quote:
Originally Posted by Leape LL. Error in medicine. JAMA
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK304331/
Rather than typing out another response to your ridiculousness, I'll just use the one this individual nicely put together,
Quote:
Originally Posted by Benjamin Wei, Scottsdale, Arizona
The irony about this here, according to the way they've defined medical error, those individuals that died due to legionnaires disease early on in the Flint crisis could be counted in this analysis if the doctor inappropriately diagnosed pneumonia prior to anyone realizing the water supply was toxic.
Of course, more tests can prevent erroneous diagnoses. But then herbox would be in here complaining how western medicine just wants to scam people through unnecessary diagnostics. That's the problem with the alt med industry. They love to sit in the bleachers trying to chunk popcorn at the real players, but heaven forbid they have to start living up to standards like mainstream medicine. And when their crap is shown either useless (acupuncture) or incredibly dangerous (Ephedra), these children b!tch and moan about the evil big pharm just trying to hold them down.
Any failure of conventional medicine does nothing to support the success of TCM.
Nevertheless, it's a good place to post this news item. ;)
Quote:
http://assets.bwbx.io/images/iwpBn7llexzI/v1/-1x-1.jpg
PATIENTS TURN TO DODGY PRIVATE HOSPITALS FOR LACK OF OPTIONS.
SOURCE: STR/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Why Quacks Are Thriving in China
MAY 5, 2016 11:07 PM EDT
By Adam Minter
There are more than 10,000 private hospitals in China, and their numbers -- and revenues -- are growing every year. Yet they’re also among the least trusted institutions in China, widely assumed to be dens of quackery, malpractice and shameless profiteering.
So why do patients flock to them? One reason is that China’s top search engine, Baidu, accepts their advertising.
China’s Pain Points
That’s how Wei Zexi, a 21-year-old cancer patient, ended up spending more than $30,000 on what was advertised as an experimental treatment at a private Beijing clinic. He died on April 12, but not before writing an angry account of his fleecing that went viral on China’s Internet. For now, most criticism has focused on Baidu. But that’s not entirely fair. The Chinese government, which has been the first to point fingers in this case, is just as much at fault, in large part for its longstanding failures to reform and regulate China’s healthcare sector.
The problems start in Putian, a small city in China’s coastal Fujian Province. It’s best known as a manufacturing base for counterfeit designer footwear. But Putian’s biggest business is the network of 8,600 private hospitals owned and run by a handful of Putian families. Collectively, they represent roughly three-quarters of all private hospitals in China.
The empire has sordid roots in 1980s China, when a handful of entrepreneurs started selling iffy skincare treatments and later expanded into STD clinics. Their methods were less than ethical. A 2006 account by a Chinese state media organ claimed that the company often tricked people into paying for treatments when they had no STDs; in pursuit of additional business, some agents even allegedly sprayed public toilets in Shanghai with an itch-inducing lacquer.
The Putian clan’s methods don’t seem to have improved much since then. According to Caixin, a respected Chinese business magazine, some Putian-affliated hospitals threaten to punish doctors who don’t collect at least 1,000 yuan per patient -- the equivalent of $153 and an extraordinary sum when public hospital consultations can be had for the equivalent of $2 or $3 (plus a long wait). To meet the quota, doctors prescribe unnecessary treatments and drugs, oftentimes pressuring patients when at their most vulnerable. Vice recently reported on one man talked into undergoing a medically unnecessary circumcision at a Putian-affliated hospital, then “pushed” to sign off on more expensive procedures that eventually left him impotent.
These kinds of stories are rife in China, told and retold whenever Chinese complain about health care. Part of the problem is that there aren’t enough regulators to keep up with the growth in private hospitals and clinics. (Of course, even if there were enough, many Putian-owned facilities -- including the one used by Wei Zexi -- are embedded in military hospitals that are exempt from oversight by civil medical authorities.)
The bigger problem, though, is a lack of capacity in the state-run health system. Since the late 1970s, the Chinese government has steadily reduced its contributions to public health institutions in hopes that they’ll develop their own, market-based revenue sources. But many of these clinics and hospitals -- especially at the local community level -- simply aren’t able to survive without government help.
The same goes for medical personnel. China’s famous “barefoot doctors,” for example, who were trained over three-to-six month periods to offer simple medical care in rural villages, have largely disappeared. Well-trained general practitioners are almost as scarce -- China currently has 25,000 GPs serving a population exceeding 1.3 billion. Low pay deters many students from entering the field. So, too, does an ongoing epidemic of patient violence against physicians, driven by the widespread perception that the profession is profiteering and corrupt.
With no GP or community clinic to consult, most Chinese patients self-diagnose and then head to China’s overcrowded public hospitals to wait in line for a specialist. Those who don’t trust the public hospitals (and they have their own serious problems), either go directly to private hospitals or -- even worse -- scour the Internet for options. Baidu, China’s leading search engine, has long allowed medical providers to push up their listings in search rankings, making them look more legitimate.
The problem eludes easy fixes. Banning online advertising of medical services would be a good place to start, with one smaller Chinese search engine already announcing it will do so voluntarily. The Chinese government also needs to pay for more regulators, while extending their remit to cover military hospitals.
Above all, though, the government needs to improve the quantity and quality of China’s doctors. That means funding new clinics and subsidizing higher salaries for general practitioners and specialists in less-lucrative fields such as pediatrics. Strengthening malpractice laws would also encourage both private and public hospitals to focus more on patients than profits.
Training thousands of new doctors will take years. But if China is truly focused on creating a consumer-based economy, then ensuring the health of those consumers would seem a good place to start.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
To contact the author of this story: Adam Minter at aminter@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Nisid Hajari at nhajari@bloomberg.net