Medicine Health

Are you shocked by these numbers I found in a magazine and a book?

"Each year 2.2 million Americans suffer adverse reactions to prescription drugs. Of them, more than 100, 000 die, making side effects a leading cause of death."

"In the case of arthritis, non-steroidal, analgesic, anti-inflammatory drugs caused the death of 16, 400 Americans in 2000."

At first, I couldn't believe those numbers. Then I thought again and found it makes sense. Most Americans are victims of the current health system: Those who have health insurance are over treated with unnecessary X-rays, surgeries and prescription drugs; those who have no health insurance are under treated without life-saving medicines.

What surprises me is that there are no headlines and no media even reporting about it. In fact, the leading cause of death is not car accidents, not cancers, not wars, but drug's side effects. For the medical community, these deaths seem to be just statistics. For the public, these deaths are normal: if a person dies in a hospital, he or she is doomed to die, without thinking that the treatment in the hospital may cause the death.

Since the late 19th century, modern medicine has dominated the world medical systems; as if it is the only medical system on earth and isolated chemical drugs are the only medicines to cure diseases.

It is very easy to understand that diseases are caused by both internal and external factors. Modern medicine mainly aims at outer factors: bacteria, viruses and injuries, which cause acute diseases. Traditional medicine focuses on inner factors: imbalanced body systems, emotions and nutrition, which causes chronic diseases suffered by most of us every day.

Indeed, most drugs' side effects are from using chemical drugs for chronic disorders, since chronic disorders are cased by multiple systems and do not fit the war model of modern medicine: use a bullet to shoot a target.

Now we are at a historic time: It is the rise of the rest - the rest of the world. How about the medical system? Should modern medicine admit its limits and make room for other healing systems that in many cases are more successful on chronic disorders?