When Doctors go on strike

Doctors Have Been on Strike Periodically and During Each One, Death Rates Decreased Substantially From Certain Treatments Below is a compilation involving doctors when they have been on strike during various times, which gives an overview glimpse of this prevailing grim situation, where many preventable deaths would be in fact saved from occurring if physicians were missing in attendance from a variety of certain common medical practices. Very little news coverage has been presented to the public regarding these occasional strikes, about their resulting similar consistent decrease in mortality rates during each work stoppage and why it is a valid concern. In the Columbian capital of Bogotá (South America) during 1972, doctors went on strike for 52 days, with only emergency care available. The death rate dropped by 35%. Los Angeles County in 1976, during a partial “work slowdown” by doctors protesting against the sharp increase in premiums for liability insurance, the number of deaths fell by 18%. A similar phenomenon occurred in Canada when a percentage of physicians refused to work and the mortality rate dropped during that period as well. When the strikes ended after a number of weeks, the death rates went back to their previous levels. Physicians have now gone on strike four times in Israel over the last six decades. During all four situations the mortality rate had dropped. The first strike started back in the 1950s, and the next one in 1973, when Israeli doctors went on strike for four weeks, deaths fell by 50% during that month. The Israel Medical Association (IMA) implemented a strike in March 2000, lasting three months, to protest against the government’s proposed imposition of a new four-year wage contract for doctors. Hundreds of thousands of visits to outpatient clinics were canceled or postponed, along with tens of thousands of elective operations. Emergency rooms, dialysis units, oncology departments, obstetric and neonatal departments, and other vital facilities had been working normally during the action. During this strike period, the death rate fell by nearly 40% according to calculated funeral records. The only area of Israel which was found to not have a reduction in its death rate was the city of Netanya. It also just so happens that all of the doctors at the only hospital in that city have “no-strike” clauses in their contracts and were therefore unaffected by the action. The Jerusalem Post surveyed non-profit burial societies about the March 2000 strike, which performs funerals for the vast majority of Israelis, and found that the number of funerals had fallen dramatically. Meir Adler, manager of the Shamgar Funeral Parlour, which buries most other residents of Jerusalem, declared with much certainty: "There definitely is a connection between the doctor’s absent from work and fewer deaths. We saw the same thing previously in year 1983, when the IMA applied sanctions to stop work, which lasted 4 ½ months." Jerusalem Sun newspaper, year 2000 "The number of funerals we have performed has fallen drastically," said Hananya Shahor, the veteran director of Jerusalem's Kehilat Yerushalayim burial society. "This past month of May, there were only 93 funerals compared with 153 in May 1999, 133 in the same month of 1998, and 139 in May 1997," he said. Last April, there were only 130 deaths compared with 150 or more in previous Aprils. "I can't explain why," said Mr. Shahor. The society handles 55% of all deaths in the Jerusalem metropolitan area. Dr. Joseph Mercola, British Medical Journal 2000; 320:1561 COMMENT: Well, here we have it again, definitive proof that traditional medicine overall kills more people than it saves. There is no question that traditional approaches for acute traumas (e.g., heart attack, stroke, accidents, etc.) are valuable and should not be abandoned. However, when involving a drug / surgical paradigm to address chronic illness, it is generally a prescription for disaster. Consider this as you the reader evaluate here human behavior involving business: The Burial Association had actually requested Government to intervene and quickly help stop such walkouts, because their business comings and goings drop markedly. This also indicates why the pharmaceutical business feels compelled to spend massive amounts of money on drug advertising, partly aimed at influencing children, where the future stability of its industry is at stake. Children watching television in the United States, for example, are generally being trained to think there is a pill for every ill. Many parents may laugh at this “pharma hype” and avoid lining-up themselves to the prescription drug side-effects approach for treatment of their particular illness, but it all becomes quite normal to a child. COMPARATIVE CAUSES OF DEATH; AN ANNUAL AVERAGE IN THE U. S. ** Adverse Drug Reactions 100,000 to 140,000 --- JUST THOSE REPORTED CASES ARE LISTED (doctors are not required to file drug reactions; it’s a voluntary procedure and through data tracking estimates show that less than 11% of such cases are ever reported, making this statistic a basically very conservative figure). ++ Automobile Accidents 39,325 Food Contamination 9,100 Boating Accidents 2,064 Household Cleaners 74 Acute Pesticide Poisoning 12 All Vitamins 0 Amino acids 0 Commercial Herbal Products 0 ** Sources Data as of 1995 from American Association of Poison Control Centers, National Center for Health Statistics, Journal of the American Medical Association, Centers for Disease Control, March of Dimes, Consumer Product Safety Commission, FDA Reports. ++ It is worth noting that if one factors in these adverse drug reaction fatality numbers with all the other people who became directly SICK from the same particular present day routine standard medical lucrative practices, but didn’t actually die during the yearly 12 month data recording cycle (of what was filed and all those not filed) -- the entire combined number of all effected iatrogenic(medical definition -- caused by a physician) instances could easily be up to several million each year, according to compiled survey test samples. If you are interested in learning about the closely tied symbiotic relationship between physicians, the pharmaceutical industry, FDA, medical schools, lobbyists, lawmakers, and many manipulated hired research studies – a collective influence that is causing a shocking amount of illness in so many areas of medicine --then consider watching this free of charge six award winning documentary “Prescription For Disaster.” Just click along here to start watching “Prescription For Disaster.” 88 min. Note: You can increase the screen size when viewing by using the video control panel to either click on the arrow menu pull-up, or one click on the rectangular box, or thirdly with certain computer systems, a double click directly on the video picture screen itself. Be well, Pat