Yet again, evidence-based medicine is shown to be a lie. In this case, the standard treatment treatment for prostate cancer, radical surgery, provides no benefit, though it routinely maims.
by Heidi Stevenson
We can put another nail in the coffin of mainstream medicine’s claim to being scientific and evidence based. The standard treatment for prostate cancer is rapid and drastic surgical removal of the prostate. It’s been done for years on the presumption that removal eliminates the cancer. There has never, though, been any evidence documenting any truth that it’s effective—but surgeons have been pulling out their scalpels without scruple, leaving a swath of impotent and incontinent men behind.
Now, though, there is evidence. But it doesn’t show what all those doctors wanted to hear. Instead, it shows the opposite: There is no benefit in radical prostatectomy for prostate cancer in most cases!
Just as the claim that early cancer detection saves lives is often proving to be false, so are the routine treatments proving to be pointless—unless, of course, you’re a doctor who pockets a hefty fee with each and every surgery and office visit that results.
The Study
The Independent is reporting today on the results from the world’s largest randomized trial on prostate cancer treatment. Called the Prostate Intervention Versus Observation Trial (PIVOT), it was begun in 1994. They compared surgical removal of the prostate against doing nothing. They found no statistical benefit in surgery.
The results are not yet in print. They were presented at a Paris meeting of the European Association of Urology. It was attended by 11,000 specialists from all over the world.
The results were met with silence. According to The Independent, in contrast to the usual response to large trial results, mass notification via internet social media, nothing happened. As one expert stated:
I did not see any urologists enthusiastically tweeting about [this one].
One British urologist, Ben Challacombe, doesn’t agree with the results, saying:
We would offer milder treatment such as radiotherapy or watchful waiting. We are better than the US in putting men on surveillance.
But the fact is that there is little, if any, evidence of the efficacy of milder treatments, either. And while it’s certainly comforting, there is little to show that the British method of less aggressive treatment is an improvement over the American approach.
Lies and More Lies
The fact is that we’ve been lied to for years. Under the false banner of evidence-based medicine, fear is used to herd people into unnecessary and often dangerous tests, many of whom are then pressured into unnecessary and often crippling treatments. In many, if not most, cases, there has been no evidence to support the efficacy of either the early-detection shibboleth or the rush to extreme treatment.
Both early detection and drastic treatment have been based on nothing more than assumptions masqueraded as evidence. People are pressured into both early detection tests and drastic treatments with a combination of fear tactics, doctor-knows-best condescension, and plain old feels-good and sounds-good false logic.
Surely the time has arrived when doctors who perform these abusive treatments should be brought to justice. In the case of routine prostate surgery, half the men are left impotent and at least 10 percent are made incontinent—for no discernible benefit! And that doesn’t include the number who suffer from other injuries, such as drug-resistant infections. This is not treatment. It’s attack with intent to produce harm. Doctors know that their treatments are producing such results. They’ve claimed that it’s worthwhile because they’re saving lives. But they aren’t. What they’re doing is butchery, hidden behind false claims.
The truth is that modern medicine’s claims to being evidence based are little more than hot air spouted by a corrupt system that is now using its falsely-gained respect and trust to destroy every alternative approach to healing. Their method is to say, over and over again, that there’s no proof they work. Yet, modern medicine can’t prove its own methods work or are safe. By what right do they attempt to keep us from using other systems of healing?
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You may be interested in reading: Time to End the Tyranny of Licenses to Practice Medicine
Tagged conventional medicine, evidence-based medicine, evidence-based medicine lie, prostate cancer, prostate cancer surgery, prostate cancer treatment ineffective, pseudo-science, pseudoscience