A while ago, I read a figure that was something like, “In the entire history of medicine before the invention of antibiotics, doctors killed more people than they saved.” Of course, this is impossible to really prove. There’s no way to get those statistics. But it seems about right. We all know the stories of the bleeders and leechers of medicine in the past: George Washington bled to death by his doctors after he caught pneumonia; King Charles II bled, blistered, and purged until he slipped into a coma he never woke up from; even the obstetricians of Semmelweiss’s time infecting their patients by refusing to ever wash their hands.
When cranky about the medical industry, I've been known to comment, "More people have been saved from disease by illiterate ditchdiggers than all the doctors who've ever lived."
When cranky about the medical industry, I've been known to comment, "More people have been saved from disease by illiterate ditchdiggers than all the doctors who've ever lived."
You might find this article about drugs for ALS interesting. They explicitly make parallels between ALS drugs with poor evidence and Alzheimer’s drugs. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/06/26/relyvrio-als-fda-approval
I'll do you one better on the interesting front. Take a look at the last name of the CEO quoted in the article...
OMG