The medical term used to describe a condition induced in a patient by a treatment given by a health practitioner is "iatrogenic."A July 2000 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (jama) presented statistics to show that doctors are the third leading cause of death, after heart disease and cancer, in the United States.

From a separate study commissioned by the Nutrition Institute of America, a more recent article entitled "Death by Medicine" by Drs. Null, Dean, Feldman, and Rasio concludes that the American medical system is the"leading cause of death and injury in the United States."

It lists the total number of iatrogenic deaths in the United States as 783,936 compared to the 2001 heart disease annual death rate of 699,697, and annual cancer death rate of 553,251. Rather sobering, don't you think?

One would expect that, with its ranking in medical technology near the top of all nations, the U.S. would place among the best in the health of its citizens. Unfortunately, this is not the case. According to the jama article, the U.S. ranked on average, from seventh to thirteenth among nations of the world for 16 health indicators, ranging from birth problems through to life expectancy.

The year 2000 World Health Organization report ranked the U.S. twenty-fourth in health-expectancy among nations of the world despite it being the most prosperous.

Hospital Infections

The Chicago Tribune conducted a study of the files of 5,810 hospitals in the U.S. in the year 2000. The report found that, "nearly three-quarters of the deadly infections - about 75,000 - were preventable, the result of unsanitary facilities, germ-laden instruments, unwashed hands and other lapses." It estimated that approximately, "50% of doctors and nurses in hospitals do not clean their hands between patients."

The conclusive finding was that preventable deaths from hospital germs are now the fourth leading cause of death among Americans.Many germs are becoming "super bugs" that are resistant to antibiotics. Similar problems exist in Canada, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand.

Treating Symptoms

We are confused about what causes disease. Our medical system doesn't know either! Typically, we think diseases just "happen" to us, similar to the bad luck of being dealt a losing hand in a game of cards.

For a large percentage of the diseases described in medical books and literature, we find the cause listed as "unknown." If we don't know what the cause of a disease is, how can we know what to do to treat it? We invariably end up only treating the symptom.

Treating a symptom is like taking the battery out of a smoke alarm when it has sounded instead of looking for the source and cause of the smoke.

Is it possible the headache we feel is signaling that something is out of balance with the body's metabolism? Or could it have something to do with our emotional state? What is something as simple and basic as indigestion telling us? The body is talking to us; but are we listening? Are we trying to correct the underlying causes? We should be.