Call me a pessimist if you like, but when I hear positive news coming out of the mainstream media about conventional medicine I tend to run for cover! What are they trying to sell us now? What is the truth behind this 'good' news story?
"Eight out of ten knee replacements and six out of ten hip replacements last as long as 25 years", says a study undertaken at the University of Bristol, and published in the Lancet. The research looked at 25 years of operations, in several countries, involving more than 500,000 people. So it is not a small or insignificant study. And I have no wish to question the findings. Instead, I want to point to two reasons for not celebrating this 'good' news, or even considering it to be 'good' news.
1. THE NEED FOR THE OPERATIONS
I have yet to hear anyone say to me that they prefer their replacement limb to their natural limb, when that limb was functioning properly, and without pain. I have written about this several times.
In March 2018 I asked the question - Surgical Operations. Miracle? Or Medical Failure?
In this blog I pointed out that both limb and organ replacement constituted the failure of conventional medicine to keep limbs and organs in good working order.
In August 2015 I argued that "The brilliance of surgical operations is based on the failure of pharmaceutical drugs", and so, it that sense, avoidable.
In July 2018 I described "A long journey through pain and painkilling drugs to surgery" after speaking to an old friend whose operation had not gone according to plan.
So yes, limb and organ replacements are brilliant surgical feats! But most of them are necessary only because in the years leading up to them conventional medicine, and particularly pharmaceutical drugs, have failed, or have actually exacerbated, the problem.
2. WHAT THE FIGURES TELL US
The other reason comes from the figures themselves. It is, indeed, good news that artificial limbs can last up to 25 years - at least for those that actually do last that long.
- Yet if 8 out of 10 knees last for 25 years, what about the other two?
- And if 6 out of 10 hips last for 25 years, what about the other four?
So let's look closer at the figures that have been revealed in the Lancet article.
Hip replacements: 89% lasted for 15 years: so 11% did not last 15 years. 70% lasted 20 years: so 30% did not last 20 years. 58% lasted 25 years: so 42% did not last 25 years.
Total knee replacements: 93% lasted 15 years: so 7% did not last 15 years. 90% lasted 20 years: so 10% did not last 20 years. 82% lasted 25 years: so 18% did not last 25 years.
The mainstream media can be relied upon to herald the 'good news' about the triumphs of conventional medicine. But I suggest that within this 'good news', within the very figures it has used to proclaim it, there is an awful lot of bad news too - contained within the same statistics - and ignored.
So consider the situation of a woman, in her mid-40's, who has already had a hip operation? She had great faith in conventional medicine, and when the doctor told her to take painkillers, she took painkillers - for many years. What will happen to her?
- By the time she is 60 her replacement hip has an 11% chance of failing.
- By the time she is 65 her replacement hip has a 30% chance of failing.
- By the time she is 70 her replacement hip has a 42% chance of failing.
And then what? More pain? Another operation? Another hip?
And all because when we suffer pain doctors encourage us to take painkilling drugs, which are toxic, which we become used to, so we need stronger painkillers, which are more toxic. And the pain gets worse because of the toxicity that is building up, year on year, until the pain becomes unbearable.
This 'long journey through pain to surgery' is quite unnecessary. Homeopathy deals with pain, it can ameliorate it, it can get rid of it. It is what homeopaths, naturopaths, osteopaths, chiropractors, and other natural therapists do every day. The outcomes of natural medicine are so much better than the outcomes of conventional, drug based medicine. But don't expect your doctor to tell you this!
So from the 'good news' that conventional medicine is proclaiming through this study, there is bad news. We face a future in which an increasing number of people will become crippled - because patients have been told by doctors that having an artificial joint is a good thing (and the only thing) - and they believe it because of the agony they suffered during years of taking toxic painkillers.