Friday, July 1, 2016

Cancer and Conspiracies

So I work in an operating room, and it is amazingly sad at how distrustful people are of modern medicine. There have been way too many people that I have seen in my two short years working in the hospital, that are almost beyond saving. They all fall into these ridiculous conspiracy theories that people have about the dangers of modern medicine and the evilness of doctors and medical companies.

We just had a patient today come in with extremely bad cancer. This patient was so far gone that if the doctors didn't operate, the patient would be dead very soon. And as it is, this patient might not live for very much longer anyway. Instead of listening to the doctors, they took to the internet instead. This patient decided that they would take matters into their own hands and cure the cancer with a remedy found on the internet. This patient alternated fasting and drinking carrot juice to cure the cancer. It obviously didn't work. Another patient a month or so ago, came in with uterine cancer. It truly looked like she had a cantaloupe melon under her shirt. She was too afraid to go to the doctor when the tumor first began to grow and show symptoms. The only reason she did finally come in was due to the fact that the tumor was pressing on her intestines and she couldn't go to the bathroom and her body was essentially poisoning itself.

These are just two examples of the massive number of people who take matters into their own hands and it goes completely wrong. For those that believe in God, I say that God made doctors and antibiotics and modern medicine. Why make something that he doesn't want us to use? For those that don't believe in a God, I'll grant you this. There are some herbal remedies that really are beneficial. Tea is something that does wonders. I drink a nice raspberry tea for headaches. Some teas are good for a stomach illness. Putting moist tea bags on nipples when they are sore after breastfeeding is a good pain reliever. However. There is NO herbal remedy to cure cancer. Or the measles, or Ebola, or any of those nasty bugs and diseases out there. I don't know where this huge mistrust of doctors came from, but I urge all of you to use your brains. Talk to real people who work in the medical field if you have concerns. Don't turn to the internet to find an alternate cure. The doctors aren't out to get you, big Pharma isn't out to get you, and the government isn't out to get you. I've heard people say that big pharma doesn't want cancer cured because it is making them rich, and that they have a cure but are keeping it quiet with the governments help so that they continue to make money. And the people who buy into this craziness I ask you, if big pharma were to create a vaccine that eradicated cancer, would you take it?

This leads me to vaccines. I honestly don't understand how the Autism and Vaccine conspiracy caught on as much as it did. There is no link. I have had to write several papers on the subject, and I found something very interesting in my research. There has been a lot of talk about the MMR vaccine causing autism. Here is the thing though. The first documented study on autism was in the 1940s. The MMR vaccine wasn't even around until the mid 60s to 70s. In the same articles I read, it also said that for many years, doctors believed that autism and schizophrenia were one in the same. So autism has been around for many many years. Far longer than the MMR vaccine. So if the vaccine didn't exist, then where did autism come from? And it if was around before the vaccine, it stands to reason that it will continue to occur no matter how many vaccines we create.

For all of the parents out in the world against vaccines because they are too dangerous, I ask you this. I was looking at the Vaccine Injury Compensation website, and it said that between the years of 2006-2014, over 2.5 billion vaccines were delivered in the U.S. About 3500 people during that 8 year span filed a claim of injury due to vaccines. and 2200 people were found to have good claims and were compensated. Many of you are thinking that 2200 people is quite a lot. And it is a big number. However, that also means that 1 out of every 1,136, 363 people who received during that time period experienced no serious side effects. According to the Doctors Without Boarders website, "Most people recover within two to three weeks, but between five and 20 percent of people infected with measles die, usually because of severe complications such as diarrhea, dehydration, encephalitis, or respiratory infections. Such severe complications are more common in children under the age of 5." So my question is, Why risk a 1 in a million chance, over a 1 in 20 chance? The more people who don't vaccinate, the more likely the 1 in 20 chance becomes more realistic.

In the end, please educate yourselves in the proper way through proper channels. Talk to people who are right there experiencing and dealing with these diseases. Don't read the "horror" stories on the internet. It won't do any good for anyone if these conspiracies keep taking bigger holds on our communities. If you have seen the movie Contagion, then you have seen a movie version of how a virus spreads (if you haven't seen it, I suggest that you do). As my dad says, it isn't a matter of If, but When a disease will sweep through the world and wipe a large portion of us out. We need to do all in our power to keep that from happening.

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