Many times the health issues of the patient are subjective in nature. Subjectivity now seems to be a dirty word in medicine yet is the foundation of all medicine. These subjective complaints can be the hardest symptoms to have taken seriously. With tools like the Internet patients can discuss these problems with others in the same boat perhaps finding an objective measurement of their subjective symptom.
Teachers and professors, not just of medicine, once could lord over the student because they had not yet imparted their knowledge to the student. The wise teachers encouraged debate and understood their own limitations within the subject matter while others smothered thought and questions thereby never revealing their own lack of expertise in the subject at hand. Now the students, like the patients, are armed with knowledge and informed questions enabling them to extract details from what once may have been a reluctant educator.
Internet Data, Good or Bad?
Frequently, whether in colleges or in the doctors offices of the world we are warned against the evils and usefulness of the information available on the Internet. One has to question the root of the logic of those who speak against this newfound flow of data. In the past if data were peer reviewed, published in ink, and placed in a library these data were taken as fact and put into curriculum regardless of how flawed or biased the process was in facilitating that bit of information.
Now if this information is flawed it's much more likely to be critiqued by hundreds or thousands in chat rooms, newsgroups, forums, blogs and websites around the world. Those who buy into nonsense were going to buy into it anyway somewhere, but now the majority of people will ask good questions and seek data from very good sources bypassing the nonsense. Those who believe anything they read are still going to be out there and, they are comprised of our educators, doctors, politicians, clergy, laborers, bellhops, maids and business leaders.
When the data given online reek of propaganda the wise people alert others, much to the dismay of the corporate world of mis-information and dis-information. All too often people who had control of information were dangerously skewing the information they released to the lowly public. One good example of this is data being withheld about the prevalence of disease.
In one situation close to this author's heart, a particular government health body told anyone who asked that there was no Lyme disease in their area and furthermore there were no ticks known to carry and transmit the disease there. As a result, the public were not taking the precautions necessary to protect themselves. Many needlessly contracted the illness. The Internet revealed the true results of the governments' own research showing they knew of the seriousness at hand for some years The general practitioners, our frontline defence, had relied of the government to provide the data but they had been kept in the dark, yet again.
Trust in those in control of our health who are paid to protect the public is as low as it has been in memory, and for good reason. Examples are everywhere from medical guideline writers having conflicts of interest to pharmaceutical product licensing to firings of whistle-blowers who dared to reveal truths.
Most people, when given enough information are able to garner the seed from the chaff and when given the opportunity will seek the seed, not the chaff. When they find the seed they take whatever action is required to sew that seed.
Things Must Change
Using the medical and scientific research community as a prime examples of why things must change we firstly have to understand that those in charge will resist change.
Typically a researcher has to seek funding to embark on the study of an idea or theory he/she may have. The sources of funding are finite, fought after, and often come with the price tag of giving up intellectual and economic rights to the final product to a private or corporate entity.
Only those persons or corporations with enough money to fund or co-fund research are privy to the ownership benefits of research. They then are able to gain more control of data, increase their wealth and, in too many cases then can dictate to the scientists what is to be achieved from their benevolence.
Once a researcher has funding in place and research is complete, papers are produced. When reviewed by a potentially biased or conflicted group of peers, the final paper is then published in journals related to the specific area of medicine or science the research was deemed within.
Too often those who fund the research have considerable influence in the publishing of that information (ie. well placed peers in the peer review/publishing process). Only those data the funding source wants released goes to print. When that data, which suited the needs of that funding source were printed it greatly limited and guided the worlds' databank of knowledge. When driven by money...sanity, sustainability, moral responsibility, medical responsibility, ethical responsibility and wisdom are lost.
Cover-up of undesirable findings and failure to disclose are all too common.
Teachers and professors, not just of medicine, once could lord over the student because they had not yet imparted their knowledge to the student. The wise teachers encouraged debate and understood their own limitations within the subject matter while others smothered thought and questions thereby never revealing their own lack of expertise in the subject at hand. Now the students, like the patients, are armed with knowledge and informed questions enabling them to extract details from what once may have been a reluctant educator.
Internet Data, Good or Bad?
Frequently, whether in colleges or in the doctors offices of the world we are warned against the evils and usefulness of the information available on the Internet. One has to question the root of the logic of those who speak against this newfound flow of data. In the past if data were peer reviewed, published in ink, and placed in a library these data were taken as fact and put into curriculum regardless of how flawed or biased the process was in facilitating that bit of information.
When the data given online reek of propaganda the wise people alert others, much to the dismay of the corporate world of mis-information and dis-information. All too often people who had control of information were dangerously skewing the information they released to the lowly public. One good example of this is data being withheld about the prevalence of disease.
In one situation close to this author's heart, a particular government health body told anyone who asked that there was no Lyme disease in their area and furthermore there were no ticks known to carry and transmit the disease there. As a result, the public were not taking the precautions necessary to protect themselves. Many needlessly contracted the illness. The Internet revealed the true results of the governments' own research showing they knew of the seriousness at hand for some years The general practitioners, our frontline defence, had relied of the government to provide the data but they had been kept in the dark, yet again.
Trust in those in control of our health who are paid to protect the public is as low as it has been in memory, and for good reason. Examples are everywhere from medical guideline writers having conflicts of interest to pharmaceutical product licensing to firings of whistle-blowers who dared to reveal truths.
Most people, when given enough information are able to garner the seed from the chaff and when given the opportunity will seek the seed, not the chaff. When they find the seed they take whatever action is required to sew that seed.
Things Must Change
Using the medical and scientific research community as a prime examples of why things must change we firstly have to understand that those in charge will resist change.
Typically a researcher has to seek funding to embark on the study of an idea or theory he/she may have. The sources of funding are finite, fought after, and often come with the price tag of giving up intellectual and economic rights to the final product to a private or corporate entity.
Only those persons or corporations with enough money to fund or co-fund research are privy to the ownership benefits of research. They then are able to gain more control of data, increase their wealth and, in too many cases then can dictate to the scientists what is to be achieved from their benevolence.
Once a researcher has funding in place and research is complete, papers are produced. When reviewed by a potentially biased or conflicted group of peers, the final paper is then published in journals related to the specific area of medicine or science the research was deemed within.
Too often those who fund the research have considerable influence in the publishing of that information (ie. well placed peers in the peer review/publishing process). Only those data the funding source wants released goes to print. When that data, which suited the needs of that funding source were printed it greatly limited and guided the worlds' databank of knowledge. When driven by money...sanity, sustainability, moral responsibility, medical responsibility, ethical responsibility and wisdom are lost.
Cover-up of undesirable findings and failure to disclose are all too common.
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