FEATURE

Knowledge Advances by Refuting False Dogmas

Prof. B. M. Hegde,
hegdebm@gmail.com

It was Karl Popper, a great thinker and professor of science philosophy at the London School of Economics in the 1950s, who wrote that knowledge advances NOT by repeating known facts but by refuting false dogmas in any field. In my field of medicine there are more dogmas than facts. So I deem it my duty to point out those dogmas which are false. I have been doing that for nearly five decades now almost from the time I started there. Many people are not aware of my quiet work over the decades even when I was in active practice. In fact, whenever I used to lecture in England, they used to label me as a therapeutic nihilist. Many of my patients would testify to that effect. So my recent label of vriddha Nayari pativrita does not fit me well. This is for those friends of mine who have given me that label.

I was in Mumbai. One of my very, very dear students, Ratnakar, a consultant here called me to say that some doctors in Mumbai do not like me and they are bad mouthing me behind my back. I could make out that he was hurt by that from this sentence in his note "my dear professor does not deserve this for all he does." I cannot thank him enough. I must give out some facts here to set the records straight. It is true that an article purported to have been written by me is making rounds still virally on the internet on corruption and malpractices of Mumbai doctors. Although the contents were 100 per cent true, I had no clue as to who wrote it. One day I got a request from Ms. Sucheta Dalal, the editor of Moneylife for permission to reprint that article in her paper. I wrote to her that I did not write that article. She promptly got her team of investigative journalists to work on that and soon enough the truth came out.

The said article was written after two years research by a good journalist in Mumbai (name withheld) who published it on line in a blog. It was not being read by many. Somebody, the team was unable to find out till now, changed the author name to mine and republished it on line. Then it went viral being read all over. So naturally the Mumbai doctors whose nefarious activities were exposed in this article are obviously angry with me. Sujata then wrote a detailed article about her investigations and the real source of the article in one of her issues. However, the anger against me (I had not even dreamt about that article) continued unabated. I am helpless here but do not know how to get rid of that stigma on me. I have been at the receiving end of their ire ever since.

I have not written any article against any individual doctor, hospital or any organisation about their malpractices as I do not have the time and energy to go into it. I do not hate any doctor or, for that matter, any mortal. My life philosophy is universal compassion and I forgive even those that seem to hate me. That is for sure. Trying to demolish the false dogmas in the area of western medicine, its non-science, and the false dogmas of our present medical education based on a shaky foundation are and had been my motto in life which I will have to continue to save mankind from mis-treatment, under-treatment as also over treatment and from the disease mongering efforts of the medical corporate monstrosities. That should not be construed as something against doctoring. Doctoring is not a business; it is a calling, and a sacred duty of every doctor. We should not try to make big money in a sick room. Our share of the remuneration will automatically come. I have been a strong believer in that philosophy from day one of my work.

I am happy that I have been single handedly responsible for demolishing some of the deadly myths which have now been realised even in the west in the last forty years. To list a few:

u Cholesterol is not a disease

u Coconut oil is not poison but a lifesaving fat

u The so called normal BP should be around 160/100 in adults. And 140/90 in diabetics.

u Old age should not be a place for mindless polypharmacy

u Calcium, vitamin supplements are dangerous

u Step down treatment and less drugs are better than more the merrier.

u Adverse drug reactions annihilate mankind.

All these have now been accepted by the powers that be in western medicine. I have also been fighting against using reductionist science in understanding the human physiology and diseases. That gives me greater joy than all the happiness in this world. There are still many more myths to fight against in medicine and hope to continue my fight aslong as God gives me permission. My thanks to my student, Ratnakar, for his love. Let me assure him that those who abuse me are doing it because I am doing something that is important. Truth is bitter and can influence only half a score of men in a century while falsehood and misery will drag millions-by the nose.

"There have been countless examples of the manipulation of published research at the hands of pharmaceutical companies in recent years. This is why Harvard Professor of Medicine Arnold SymourRelman told the world that the medical profession has been bought by the pharmaceutical industry. It’s why Dr. Richard Horton, Editor in Chief of The Lancet, recently stated that much of the sceintific literature published today is simply untrue. It’s why Dr. Marcia Angell, former Editor in Chief of The New England Journal of Medicine, said that the “pharmaceutical industry likes to depict itself as a research-based industry, as the source of innovative drugs. Nothing could be further from the truth.” And it’s why John Ioannidis, an epidemiologist at the Stanford University School of Medicine, published an article titled “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False” which subsequently became the most widely accessed article in the history of the Public Library of Science (PLoS)," to quote a friend of mine. The so called scientific research is only an advertising gimmick and nothing to do with science. To get out of this mess is not very easy as the industry is very powerful. If we do nothing about it the hapless patients suffer. We are between the devil and the deep sea.