June 16, 2008

Cardiac Stents, Angioplasty, By-Pass…virtually worthless.

My readings on individual autonomy and decision-making have been interrupted by the arrival of: Worried Sick: A Prescription for Health in an Overtreated America, an elegant guide for the medical layperson and an excoriating refutation of most of medicine’s modern “miracles”. Many of the conclusions in this book would be easy to ignore, if the author were some anti-establishment quack or a disciple of Mary Baker Eddy. However, Nortin Hadler is a physician, held in high esteem for both his clinical practice and academic research. I’ve read most of his work and can attest that Dr. Hadler has the intellectual horsepower, epidemiological expertise and the driving passion to tackle the sickening aspects of our healthcare system.

Here’s the money quote from Chapter 1: The Heart of the Matter

“I submit that interventional cardiology and cardiovascular surgery have written one of the bleakest chapters in the history of Western medicine. If there was never another CABG or angioplasty performed or stent placed, patients with heart disease would be better off. Clearly, all this is missing the forest for the trees. There is something basically wrong with the theory that calls for violence to the offending, occluding plaque. To abandon the theory would shut down interventional cardiology, nearly all cardiovascular surgery, and many surgical supply houses and biotechnology firms. It would dramatically downsize hospitals in the United States and free up over $100 billion annually. And that’s just the direct costs…”

Crazy, huh? Wait until you read his review of the literature (shudder). Dr. Hadler offers not only provocative opinions, but an accessible, yet thorough, analysis of the research. Almost half of this book’s mass is supplementary reading and discourse about the design and torture of relevant biomedical studies.

Equipped with the depth of knowledge, the breadth of experience, and the lack of membership to The Club of Cos, Hadler is able to address critical medical issues confronting society. Anybody who hopes to change healthcare for the better, or who wishes to better care for themselves, should dive into Worried Sick.