When I was a child, I revered doctors almost as if they were Gods. I believed them to be all-knowing and the most respected pillars of society. That stayed with me until I entered chiropractic college and studied the complexity of the body. I learned that health was more than what I had believed it to be and that doctors had many shortfalls. Ironically, I ended up meeting a doctor in the 1980s, and to my surprise, she indeed turned out to be a goddess, so I married her.
On a more serious note, one word which came to prominence a few decades ago was Iatrogenic Disease or Iatrogenesis. The name means disease or injury caused by doctors or their treatments. This appeared in many studies with books written on the subject.
In 2015 the Centers For Disease Control published a list of the top 10 causes of death. What they failed to include were Iatrogenic causes which led to 225,000 in-patient deaths, making it the third leading cause of death in the U.S. This did not include out-patient deaths.
In Australia, the estimate is 18,000 unnecessary deaths each year. The statistics don't include those who have been maimed or damaged from medical procedures.
It is no surprise that in the last 25 years, there has been a significant surge in non-conventional forms of health care such as chiropractic, acupuncture, nutritional therapy, bio-energy work and numerous other disciplines. People realized the limitations of medical care and had the freedom to pursue other treatments.
This was a positive change after what transpired for most of the 20th century when doctors criticized, demeaned and even tried to "destroy" their competition. The chiropractic profession suffered the brunt of this hostility, but things started to change in the 1970s when the American Medical Association was taken to court in an antitrust lawsuit. The AMA was found guilty of "unlawful conspiracy in restraint of trade to contain and eliminate the chiropractic profession". Once the case settled, medical doctors were allowed to associate with, and refer to chiropractors.
Unfortunately, today, we appear to have regressed back to dogmatic thinking. Just as Italian astronomer, Galileo, was a victim of dogmatic thinking in the Middle Ages, so today, people are being victimized for expressing contrarian views. It's most evident concerning Covid-19. The official stance is, don't question lockdowns or mask-wearing. Hydroxychloroquine; don't take it because the Chief Medical Officer of Australia said, "The jury is out, but it doesn't work." Don't question, just sit down and shut up. Meanwhile, studies show that most masks are not very effective and that Hydroxychloroquine is highly effective in the early stage of the illness.
Whatever happened to liberalism––the philosophy about the free exchange of ideas?
When it comes to global warming, it seems that we can't discuss it or climate change in a rational manner because the science is "settled". The problem is, many scientists don't totally agree but have to toe the line or lose their jobs.
Then there is the internet. When it first came on the scene, it opened up a whole world of access to information. It also held the promise of people being able to freely exchange ideas or express opinions. In other words, it was an expression of free speech upon which Western democracies are based; at least so it seemed.
What is happening today is that the big companies who helped to increase the vastness of the internet are mediums of censorship. You can express what you want until some algorithm or a young person sitting in front of a computer indicates that what you posted on a site is unsuitable. Phrases like "unsuitable content" or "false information as checked by our independent fact-checkers" can appear on posts on Facebook, Twitter or Youtube videos. This is entering dangerous territory. Even worse, these companies manipulate searches and track people's movements. That is a whole story in itself.
Unfortunately, the companies who own these platforms are without restrictions and are not necessarily arbiters of the truth. In fact, at times they are suppressing truthful content which is actually denying people freedom of access. This has happened recently in the case of Hydroxychloroquine.
We are returning to the dogma of the Middle Ages. Before it may have been the church that dictated "truth", today it is the big tech companies that are promoting "wokeness" which is a religion in itself. If you dare to question and even provide rational debate which contradicts wokeness, then you can be struck off a platform. This is regression, not progression.
The only way we can overcome this form of tyranny is to speak out and search for alternatives. Some companies honour freedom of speech with no censorship, including search engines which retain your privacy. Ultimately, on these sites, people can self-censor. If you don't approve of a post or feel that people are expressing something inaccurate, then you can block that post or the individual.
We need to appreciate that while disciplines like math or history are set in the past, science is not set in stone but is continually evolving. To deny open debate is to fall into the age-old principle of dogmatism.
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