December 07 , 2004

I awoke with a thundering headache -- not an everyday occurrence, but not unusual for this time of year, either. The good news is that I've a good idea of how to treat it. The bad news is that I'm unable to.

I should be more precise -- it is possible for me to treat it. If I want to pay a certain type of person (one with the proper permission slip) an inflated amount of money, there's a decent chance I'll get permission slips to buy the substances that have always resolved this problem for me in the past. Notice that I said "decent chance". I've gone to the right type of person before, only to have my history ignored, and other (newer, more expensive) things suggested. Sometimes I've tried them, and sometimes they've worked -- for a while. It seems that, once or twice a year, my problem gets so bad that nothing else works but these two substances. One is an antibiotic; the other, a steroid.

But I'm getting tired of needing to see a doctor for the same problem, year after year. In fact, I'm just plain tired of seeing a doctor to manage health concerns that I could handle myself, if I were "allowed" to. I'm tired of frittering my time in waiting rooms and exam rooms, for an "expert" to finally enter, poke me perfunctorily, question me, then tell me -- sometimes with thinly-veiled condescension -- what my problem "really" is. I'm tired of paying exorbitant prices for virtually nonexistent service. I'm tired of the state interfering with my health care decisions.

The FDA is the main agency involved, and it's responsible for very much of what's wrong with health care in America. For an excellent, highly informative examination of the FDA, see the Independent Institute FDA Review web site. The history page is not to be missed. It lays out the wholesale power grab by the agency -- a sneaky effort that involved codifying a private, voluntarily adopted standard, and twisting a law intended to get consumers more information into today's prescription-only and OTC (over the counter) categories of drugs. The process has had far-reaching consequences, including: anointing one class of health-care providers as The Chosen Ones, who wield the power to dispense potent nostrums even though they very often have a poor understanding of what they're doing; making it extremely difficult for consumers to obtain intelligible information, or to evaluate claims and counterclaims; and sucking almost all power and dignity from an already-vulnerable individual, using the guise of "informed consent" as a disguise that few Americans seem to see through.

So, I'm doing what I can on my own -- cleaning my room better and more frequently, researching treatment options, that sort of thing. One would think those are fairly straightforward processes, but no! The omnipotent FDA sticks its medicratic ineptitude in here as well. For example, I've been using two different dust-mite treatments -- a powder for carpets and cloth-covered furniture, and a liquid for laundry. I wondered if I could use the powder for both purposes. The FDA-mandated label on the package says no; it's dangerous if it comes into contact with skin. However, a web search for the active ingredient yielded a page -- on the web site of the company whose product I use -- that says that it is safe: there's "low acute dermal toxicity [because it] .... is not absorbed through intact skin." I used it for my laundry without problems -- and it worked.

Other things I'm doing include trying to improve my nutrition, and investigating homeopathic treatments. Some friends in the medicine business have recommended megadoses of vitamin C; others say that the B complex, in amounts larger than the FDA recommends, has long-term benefits. Having experienced some benefits from each myself, I'm inclined to conclude these two treatments do help me. But how can I tell what's safe based on what I read? How can an individual evaluate whether either of these -- or any of the other "nontraditional" medical therapies -- might help him or her?

It's impossible to get a good answer to either of these questions; again, I hold the FDA responsible. By supporting the allopathic medical approach -- a formulaic, treat-the-specific-disease approach (as contrasted with a more holistic, individualized, and prevention-focused approach) -- the FDA prefers a conservative view, that groups all people into one shoebox. (Well, they seem to be getting a clue on that stupid idea, as race-based medicine is being pursued by some pharmaceuticals, although not without controversy.) Thus we get idiocies like "safety" labels that forbid many uses because some small number of humans might have an adverse reaction, or recommended doses of vitamins and minerals that are far short of what some individuals require. And, because all "alternative" medicine is viewed with suspicion by the medicrats and many MDs, it's extremely difficult to separate wheat from chaff. It's particularly galling when one knows firsthand that the nutritional "education" physicians get in medical schools is laughably incomplete.

Why doesn't vitamin C, for example, get more serious consideration from the medicrats? Since a lot of FDA money comes from pharmaceutical companies (they have to pay to undergo the FDA approval process), and vitamin C is not going to be a money-maker for them the same way a patented medicine could be, where's the benefit in pushing it? That's right: there is none. It doesn't take a conspiracy theory to explain the current hand-in-glove relationship between pharmaceutical companies and the government -- all it takes is following the money, and asking the ever-important question, "Who benefits?". (This question becomes particularly relevant as companies explore many herbal remedies, with an eye toward distilling out a chemical or two for synthesis and patenting.)

I chose the title of this essay because I do think it will be the FDA that ultimately kills me -- as it's done thousands of individuals before me, and will continue to do until it meets its own richly-deserved death. I'm increasingly unwilling to do what it requires of me to get the health care I need. I know the medicine I need, the proper doses and such, and know how to tell if it isn't working -- who has the right to tell me that I can't obtain it in a private transaction free of gatekeepers and permission slips? Who has the right to keep any individual from obtaining easy to understand, accurate information about any medical condition and treatment options? Who ought to decide what treatment an individual is able to try?

In other words, who has the power of life and death over an individual? It shouldn't be any other individual, except under unusual circumstances; and it certainly shouldn't be a set of bureaucratic nanny-ninnies. But in this country, they do. And chances are better than you might think that they'll kill you, too.

Sunni's Endervidualism Article Archive

Sunni Maravillosa is the co-founder of the Liberty Round Table, publisher of Doing Freedom!, and maintains a blog and personal web site. She's also editor of CASPIAN's newsletter on consumer privacy.

Archives

Do It Your
Way

I'm Only Interested in Freedom

Law and Liberty

Git Yer Hands Out of my Pockets!

Tactics and hypocrisy

Privacy's Canaries

Permission Slips

Charges don't serve justice

Speechless

Book Review: Mallcity 14 By Shaun A. Saunders

Book Review: The Black Arrow by Vin Suprynowicz

Balance of Power: Political Power