Body has 'astounding capacity' to heal itself

My book-of-the-month summary for February is “What the Drug Companies Won’t Tell You and Your Doctor Doesn’t Know” by Michael Murray, N.D. (Atria Books, 2009, 339 pages).

Murray, a naturopathic doctor (N.D.), is a proponent of “rational” medicine combining the best of conventional and alternative methods.

Selected nuggets:

• The drug industry spends $60,000 in marketing per physician per year.

• Physicians should facilitate and enhance the body’s power to heal itself with natural, non-toxic therapies rather than simply suppressing symptoms.

• Most health conditions require medical, nutritional and lifestyle changes.

• The industries, organizations and doctors responsible for designing health care created skyrocketing costs.

• Drug companies exert virtual control over the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), medical journals and continuing medical education for physicians.

• Prescription drugs kill over 100,000 Americans per year.

• Americans use over 40 percent of the world’s prescription drugs, but are 42nd in life expectancy.

• Drug companies spend twice as much on marketing as research.

• More than half of experts advising the FDA on the safety and effectiveness of drugs have financial relationships with drug companies.

• Drug costs are higher in the U.S. than anywhere in the world.

• 70 percent of chronic daily headaches are caused by prescription drugs.

• 36 percent of physician visits and 56 percent of surgeries are unnecessary. Surgeons have to perform surgeries to cover overhead and maintain lifestyles.

• 80 percent of coronary angioplasty and bypass operations are unnecessary.

• Drug companies have redefined what is normal blood and cholesterol levels to sell more prescriptions — and redefined normal aging processes, such as menopause, as diseases.

• Drugs cannot overcome a poor diet or unhealthy lifestyle.

• There is one drug company salesperson for every 10 doctors in America.

• Doctors gain most of their pharmacology knowledge from drug companies.

• 90 percent of clinical trials are paid for by drug companies — with the results pre-determined by testing companies, with financial incentives to please them, “stacking the deck.”

• Drug companies don’t want patients to know the human body has an “astounding capacity” to heal itself.

• Patients can enhance emotional and physical health by laughing a lot and looking for the good in others.

• “It’s crazy not to be a health nut.”

Contact Wendel Sloan at: [email protected]