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Without evidence of benefit, an intervention should not be presumed to be beneficial or safe.

- Rogue Medic

Flipping the Patient the Bird

Mon, 04 Oct 2010 20:11:45 -0400 by
There is a nice sarcastic comment to The Bird is the Word – Coma Toast by Can’t say, clowns will eat me –

What? You mean oxygen doesn’t cure all ills?

It will be just our little secret, but oxygen is not a panacea . . . and . . . it . . . is . . . sometimes . . . bad.

The way it seems the vast majority of ALL EMS responders must think is that it’s better to give oxygen than to just transport. And god forbid you don’t have a pulse ox.

You have to consider the thought process involved.

Use the gadget with the flashing light.

vs.

Use my brain.

Gadget with flashing light wins too often . . . and . . . it . . . is . . . sometimes . . . bad.

But want to call HEMS for the cool pins and a nice hat? You’re a hero.

Use the noisy flying gadget with a lot of flashing lights and the free lapel pins.

vs.

Use the gadget with the flashing light.

vs.

Use my brain.

Gadget with flashing light wins too often . . . and . . . it . . . is . . . sometimes . . . bad.

–

So, go ahead and do us a favor and get some docs with you to replace the registry and possibly the joint while you’re at it.

I am just ranting away about these darned naked emperors prancing around with nothing.

These stark naked guys are the pall bearers for a lot of flight nurses, flight medics, EMS pilots, and patients.

These killer buffoons need to be stopped.

Some of the doctors are realizing this, but many emergency physicians are fanatical helicopterists. They will transfer patients from the suburbs by helicopter no matter how much the flight delays transport and even if those on the helicopter work on the ambulance when not scheduled on the helicopter.

This often has nothing to do with quality of care.

This often has nothing to do with speed of transport.

This is nothing new.

This is purely for the emotional satisfaction of the person calling for the helicopter – regardless of whether that person is a first responder with minimal medical training or a board certified emergency physician.

The only thing that changes, from Ricky Rescue to Dr. Rescue, is that Dr. Rescue uses fancier words when making his lame excuses.

This is irresponsible behavior.

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Filed Under: Critical Judgment, Ethics, Fraud, Helicopters, Heresy Tagged With: , , , , , ,

The Bird is the Word – Coma Toast

Sat, 02 Oct 2010 10:47:06 -0400 by
At Coma Toast, there is a thorough thrashing of the EMS addiction to flying uninjured patients just because we can. The Bird is the Word.

Now, there are a lot of arguments out there about the use of medical helicopters. It’s in the dispatch criteria….it’s in the protocols…..patients can get to the hospital faster. However, most of these arguments can be debunked by actually looking at patient statistics of those transported by ground ambulances verses those who were flown.

Another problem with helicopter abuse, perhaps the most deadly abuse of the helicopter, is to excuse the employment of medics and basic EMTs who cannot competently assess patients.

We don’t need to know what is going on – just put them in a helicopter.

We don’t need to be able to treat patients – we only need to be able to immobilize, get 2 large bore IVs, and hook up the ECG before the helicopter arrives. And don’t forget the non-rebreather mask with 25 liters per minute of oxygen flow.

Why think about patient care, when we have already decided what we are going to do to the patient – before we even see the patient?

We say – Look! The patient we flew the day before yesterday is driving a new car today. The helicopter saved him! We are so awesome!

No.

We should hang our heads in shame at flying uninjured people.

If we overloaded the cath lab with patients who do not have STEMIs, we would be the laughing stocks of EMS.

But put a patient with a bruised fender and a mangled bumper in a helicopter and nobody will criticize a thing.

–

A large percentage of the people we inflict perform needle decompression on, do not have even simple pneumothoraces, yet we treat them for life threatening tension pneumothoraces. We even document the rush of air escaping from the needle that never even reached the lung.

The needle wasn’t in the lung, so where did the air come from? A brain fart?

We immobilize even the witnesses to car crashes, because we are that bad at assessment.

We do a pathetic job of educating people to perform trauma assessment (of patients – not cars) and we do not remediate those who regularly demonstrate incompetence at trauma assessment. Maybe we need a White Paper on the abuse of patients by EMS.

We justify these treatment errors that injure and kill patients with, You can’t be too safe!

Injuring patients with incompetence is safe?

Killing patients with incompetence is safe?

Compared to what?

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Filed Under: Ethics, Fraud, Helicopters, Heresy Tagged With: , ,

First Few Moments – Mechanism Of Injury or Idiocy

Mon, 20 Sep 2010 19:26:35 -0400 by

On the First Few Moments podcast we had an interesting discussion about the usefulness of mechanism in making treatment and transport decisions.

Mechanism of Injury or Idiocy?

Dr. Jeff Myers, Kyle David Bates, Rick Russotti, and Scott Kier.

Should anyone view mechanism as anything more than an indication of where to pay closer attention during assessment of trauma patients? In this case, a trauma patient does not mean a patient going to a trauma center, but a patient who has had any kind of injury.

–

One of the points mentioned is that the main controversies that have been discussed recently by several of us on other podcasts (such as Dr. Bill Toon mentioned on Doctor Doctor Doctor: EMS Garage Episode 101) is that too often we use treatments in the absence of a specific indication.

Oxygen – not to treat any signs of hypoxia, but because we figure it can’t hurt and What if . . . ?

The alternative is to have EMS competently assess the patient.

Spinal immobilization – not to treat any signs of spinal cord injury, but because we figure it can’t hurt and What if . . . ?

The alternative is to have EMS competently transport the patient.

Naloxone – not to treat any signs of opioid overdose, but because we figure it can’t hurt and What if . . . ?

The alternative is to have EMS competently assess the patient and manage the airway.

50% Dextrose – not to treat any signs of hypoglycemia, but because we figure it can’t hurt and What if . . . ?

The alternative is to have EMS appropriately assess and treat decreased levels of consciousness with the appropriate treatment – for symptomatic hypoglycemia, titrate 10% dextrose to an appropriate response.

Epinephrine – not to improve survival from cardiac arrest, but because of the short term buzz of getting a pulse back and we figure it can’t hurt and What if . . . ?

The alternative is to limit EMS to effective treatments.

Mechanism Of Injury (MOI) – to replace assessment – not to improve assessment, and because we figure it can’t hurt and What if . . . ?

The alternative is to have EMS competently assess the patient.

It is important to train/educate EMS well enough to be able to provide this competent assessment.

It is idiocy to have EMS use an irrelevant damage report on the motor vehicle, which we will not be treating.

Endotracheal intubation – not because it provides a better airway, but because somebody called it a Gold Standard and we figure it can’t hurt and What if . . . ?

The alternative is to have EMS competently assess and manage the patient’s airway.

Helicopters – not to improve treatment or make a significant difference in transport time, but because we figure it can’t hurt and What if . . . ?

The alternative is to have competent EMS.

–

The answer seems to be that we need to improve EMS and EMS education – a lot.

Maybe we need to create a No Fly Zone around each trauma center. For example, if the patient is closer than an hour drive time from the trauma center any flight should be treated as a sentinel event and investigated thoroughly.

Maybe we need to have the fire companies and ambulance companies pay for any flights that are determined to have been unnecessary. If we really want to limit unnecessary flights, what will work better than forcing those of us who call for the helicopter to have to have the ability to justify the flight medically.

If a helicopter is called, just because it is easier to send a patient by helicopter than by ambulance, a $10,000 to $20,000 convenience charge may be a great way to fund helicopters and to discourage abuse of helicopters.

If we do not understand what is going on medically with the patient, we should not be making patient care decisions.

Calling for a helicopter because I am too stupid to assess my patient is bad medicine.

If we are calling for helicopters, we are making medical decisions, so we need to be able to justify those medical decisions.

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Filed Under: Critical Judgment, EMS Garage, Ethics, First Few Moments, Fraud, Helicopters, Heresy Tagged With: , , , , ,

A Conversation on Mechanism of Injury

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 09:32:49 -0400 by
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I was talking with one of the long time, weekend, night shift nurses. The people I count on to do what is right for the patient, because the administrators are not around.

Well, I mentioned in passing – I thought it was going to be just in passing – about the recent comment kerfuffle about MOI (Mechanism Of Injury criteria for trauma triage, or just mechanism). This is the assessment skill substitute for assessment that people use as a justification for flying uninjured patients in helicopters.

As if that is safe.

All of a sudden, the nurse started a little tirade about a medic who brought in a patient to this non-trauma center ED (Emergency Department) because he did not bother to report on the MOI when calling for medical command destination decision.

I do not remember what the mechanism was, but it was something vehicular and must have sounded bad, because that’s what MOI means –

The 911 call sounds bad!

or

That dent looks like it is going to cost a lot to repair!.

That has nothing to do with the patient, except that the mechanism suggests things to be more careful in assessing for.

This is all that mechanism means.

You might want to pay extra attention to these things suggested by mechanism.

Mechanism is not assessment.

Mechanism is the equivalent of stereotype, or prejudice, or bias, or racism.

Mechanism is not about understanding.

Mechanism is a shortcut that encourages ignorance.

Mechanism is just a superficial substitute for a patient assessment.

Mechanism is for those who cannot assess real patients.

Anyway, being the blunt person that I am, I interrupted the nurse’s rant, because my shift is only 12 hours long and her rant was looking like a filibuster. I didn’t even have to ask the obvious question about what a simple assessment showed, because the nurse mentioned over a dozen rib fractures and a flail chest.

Clearly, this is not a patient who should have been transported to the local ED with several trauma centers less than 20 minutes away by ground. This is a case, if reported accurately, of an incompetent medic. And not just a little bit incompetent.

Back to mechanism.

What does mechanism add to the assessment of a patient with a flail chest?

–

A flail chest is a portion of the ribs acting like a trap door. The ribs are broken in so many places that there is no resistance to pressure, except when the patient exhales.

Breathing is not very complicated. The diaphragm creates negative pressure. On inhalation, the diaphragm pulls away from the chest and the accessory muscles also cause the chest to expand. This sucks air in.

On exhalation, the diaphragm and accessory muscles relax and create pressure. This forces air out.

With a flail chest segment, breathing mechanics are mostly normal for everything except the flail segment. The rest of the chest is creating a pressure difference that moves the air. As long as the ribs are intact, they will all move together. When there is a flail segment (2, or more, ribs broken in 2, or more, places is the textbook definition) that broken part of the ribs will move the opposite direction from the rest of the ribs. The flail segment will move in the opposite direction from the intact part of the ribs.

When the ribs are expanding out to create negative pressure, the negative pressure is pulling air into the chest, but the negative pressure is also pulling the broken ribs inward.

When the ribs are relaxing and creating positive pressure, the positive pressure is  forcing the air out of the chest, but the positive pressure is also forcing the broken ribs outward.

This is one of those assessment findings that is hard to miss. The patient may be trying to keep you from assessing that part of the chest, because . . . well . . . it hurts. It doesn’t hurt a little bit. This isn’t just a hairline fracture that hurts a lot. This is a bunch of broken bones that are moving around – a lot – with every bit of breathing.

Not – It only hurts when I laugh.

Not – It only hurts when I move.

But – It only hurts when I breathe.

The normal response to the first two is pretty easy. If it hurts, when you do that, don’t do that.

That doesn’t work very well for breathing. Go ahead. See how long you can hold your breath. Now take a hammer and break a bunch of your ribs. Now, how long can you hold your breath? Not the same thing, at all.

The only time that a flail chest should be missed is when the ribs are not completely broken, in which case, it is not really a flail chest, except for the textbook definition of 2, or more, ribs broken in 2, or more, places. That is the textbook definition. The textbook definition should include the paradoxical movement. Paradoxical movement is what everyone is supposed to be looking for.

–

Paradoxical means the opposite of what we would ordinarily expect. We would ordinarily expect the ribs to all move together. With a flail chest, the flail segment is moving in the opposite direction from the rest of the ribs.

If the patient is conscious and not disoriented, the pain should be a clear clue to examine the part of the chest being protected. The patient’s arm may act as an excellent splint. Expect to use a lot of morphine/fentanyl/Dialudid. Pain will interfere with breathing more than the opioids will. Fentanyl is less likely to affect cardiac output (blood pressure), so that is my preference.

If people are missing flail chest, we need to ask Why?

We don’t need to complain that the person is ignoring mechanism.

Focusing on mechanism just ignores everything we understand about assessment.

Or do we just not understand assessment?

Mechanism Of Injury criteria for trauma triage encourage incompetence.

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Filed Under: Assessment, Ethics, Fraud, Helicopters, Heresy Tagged With: , , , , ,

That’s not Klingon It’s One Word Dyspnea: EMS Garage Episode 98

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 06:54:36 -0400 by
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We were supposed to be talking about the potential harm from the way we use oxygen in EMS, but we ended up with That’s not Klingon It’s One Word Dyspnea.

First, I mentioned that I am blogging at a new location – here. Also at EMS Blogs will be Black Hearts Incorporated, EMS Bloggers, EMS Office Hours, Medical Author Chat, Ready Fodder, The Social Medic, and Too Old To Work, Too Young To Retire. So far, EMS Office Hours, Too Old To Work, Too Young To Retire, and I are posting while things are being worked out. The blog transfer has not been fun, but it has been educational. I expect to learn a lot more. And I have to thank David Konig, who has been putting his blog, The Social Medic, on hold and guiding us through this. He has also come up with a nice simple design for my blog that I like a lot.

Then the topic turned to the recent medical helicopter crashes and Ambulance Driver’s post Is that helicopter really necessary? in response to the M.D.O.D. post Do You REALLY Need the Helicopter? Before the podcast, I wrote a post mostly about the comments on Ambulance Driver’s post. Fly Everyone, Let the NTSB Accident Investigators Sort ‘Em Out.

It should come as no surprise to people who are familiar with any of the participants, that we were very critical of the abuse of helicopter EMS by medical directors, by ED physicians, and by ground EMS personnel.

Why should we try to justify abuse?

The comments in support of helicopter abuse (on Ambulance Driver’s post) are depressing for those of us trying to improve the quality of EMS. These comments do point out the problems I wrote about in Confirmation Bias and EMS. Many of us do not appear to make any attempt to be objective in evaluating what we do in EMS. We only seem to look at things through the filter of our biases. The people writing these comments seem to have decided that helicopters always save lives and they deny that helicopter crashes are a problem.

The purpose of the helicopter is to make a significant difference in transport time for the patient who really is unstable. These patients are not as common as many suggest. They seem to be most commonly encountered by the least experienced people. In other words, as people become more skilled, they panic less and fly fewer patients. The people denying the problems with helicopters seem to be trying to demonstrate that they cannot assess patients well enough to recognize which patients are unstable, which are stable, and which were never even injured.

The people denying the problems with helicopters also seem to demonstrate that they do not understand that they are not saving significant amounts of time. They often are delaying a patient’s arrival at a trauma center just so they can put the patient in a helicopter.

Finally, we did briefly mention harm from oxygen, but that should be covered in an upcoming podcast. Preferably a show with at least one physician on it. There is a lot to discuss, when considering the over-use of oxygen, and it does appear that we use too much oxygen. We have too many patients receiving oxygen without any evidence of hypoxia.

In the absence of hypoxia, there is not evidence of benefit from oxygen, but there is evidence of harm. This goes back to at least 1950, so the idea that oxygen is harmful is not at all new. This is another example of what I write about in Confirmation Bias and EMS.

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Filed Under: EMS Garage, Ethics, Fraud, Helicopters, Heresy Tagged With: , , , , ,

Fly Everyone, Let the NTSB Accident Investigators Sort ‘Em Out

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 06:33:22 -0400 by

Many people think that my posts on science and logical fallacies are not related to EMS. For a Fantastic Feast of Fallacies, head on over to A Day in the Life of an Ambulance Driver. Read his post Is that helicopter really necessary? More important is to read the comments.

Ambulance Driver is referring to a post at M.D.O.D. by the title of Do You REALLY Need the Helicopter?

First, Ambulance Driver writes this:

Over at M.D.O.D., ERdoc85 wonders if some of his patients are being transported inappropriately via helicopter.

And the answer to that question is, “Hell yes, most of them.”

Ambulance Driver does not write a lot of words in his post, but he does provide a lot of evidence.

The Cult of Mechanism
ems1.com
The Ambulance Driver’s Perspective
by Kelly Grayson

Mechanism of Injury in Prehospital Trauma Triage
ems1.com
The EMS Contrarian
by Bryan E. Bledsoe

Alright, I’ll Say It
ems1.com
The EMS Contrarian
by Bryan E. Bledsoe

Two Dead in Oklahoma Medevac Crash
EagleMed chopper crashed enroute to pickup a patient
JEMS.com
by Ken Miller, Associated Press Writer
Friday, July 23, 2010

Ambulance Driver finishes up with this:

And if your primary justification for the flight is mechanism of injury, or the helicopter is the quickest way to clear an ER bed, or to allow your ground EMS crew to go back into service sooner, you’re part of the problem.

Nice and concise with a lot of evidence and some recent news about the real dangers of HEMS (Helicopter EMS).

Dr. Bryan Bledsoe, often wrongly accused of hating helicopters, hating flight crews, and just hating EMS, concluded Alright, I’ll Say It with this paragraph:

I had better bring this tirade to an end. While flying home today from Philadelphia, it hit me that I knew more people who have been killed in a medical helicopter accident than by virtually any other means. At some point in my life I have met or spoken with at least five people who later died in medical helicopter crashes. They were all great people and died doing what they loved. We owe it to their legacy to assure that not a single flight nurse, flight paramedic, pilot or patient dies unnecessarily.

The highlighting is mine. The hating is not there, no matter how much people would like to believe that the only way anyone could point out the problems with HEMS, or with EMS, is to hate HEMS, or to hate flight crews, or to hate EMS.

How many people spend as much time trying to improve EMS as Dr. Bledsoe does? Certainly not those who ignorantly criticize him.

You might think that any contrary opinions expressed in the comments would be well thought out, so that those commenting would not completely embarrass themselves. You would be a hopeless optimist. Maybe some quotes from the comments will cure you.

Reading the comments, I wonder how these Fly Everyone, Let the NTSB Accident Investigators Sort ‘Em Out types even mange to put decipherable sentences together. These comments certainly do not demonstrate anything that passes for understanding.

Even in the week since that post, there has been another fatal HEMS crash.

Arizona: Helicopter Crash Kills 3
By The Associated Press
Published: July 29, 2010

Here is a sampling of the commentary in defense of unnecessary helicopter flights and in defense of the unnecessary deaths of flight crews and patients.

I find this article insulting.

. . . and yes I have lost friends in airmedical crashes, but I still continue to fly and support our system.

Because if he were to admit that a lot of them died unnecessarily, that would really mess with his cognitive dissonance.

Did he read any of the linked articles?

Maybe.

Did he understand any of the articles?

Not much chance of that, assuming he did read any of them, with his cognitive dissonance protecting him from the truth.

Support our system, even if it is killing us! Go Team! Rah! Rah! Rah!

Better to be insulted, than to think.

Another writes:

I WOULD RATHER BE SAFE THAN SORRY.

This is safety?

This is not being sorry?

Then this clown accuses Ambulance Driver of being a city slicker.

Someone else criticizes a flight medic for agreeing with Ambulance Driver about the unnecessary flights.

i am sorry to hear that you get silly calls, but that is part of the job and you go when you are requested. if you dont take it then we get called as the ground crew, then you get to get back to your nap or tv show you are watching.

This one appears to think that the danger involved is limited to missing one’s favorite TV show and having to watch it later on TiVo®. He probably only remembers this bit of poetry:

Their’s not to make reply,
Their’s not to reason why,
Their’s but to do and die:

This from a raconteur wanna be:

Or better yet, when we get launched for an MVA and then declined because they end up taking the patient to the local hospital. Then invariably we’re called about 4 hours later to pick up a soup sandwhich and take them to the Level I trauma center. And what was the Rx given at the hospital, other than a cashechtomy?

Invariably?

adverb
in every case or on every occasion; always:

He is describing a problem. It might only be an imagined problem, since he does seem to have wandered, more than a little bit, from the path of the truth. He seems to be very interested in providing an entertaining story about how he could save the day, if only they would call him earlier. He does not seem to have much interest in improving anything for his patients, unless it involves him swooping in from the sky to rescue them.

Are any of these comments not great examples of the failure of logical thinking and the victory of bias?

Better safe than sorry imagines that transport by HEMS is not any more dangerous than transport by ground. Not only that, he claims that transport by HEMS is safer than transport by ground EMS. I do not doubt that this is the case, when he is the one treating patients in the ambulance. He does seem very dangerous.

Then he assumes that Ambulance Driver must not be familiar with rural EMS, even though Ambulance Driver regularly writes about rural EMS. Better safe than sorry seems to think that the only way anyone would not agree with him is to be unfamiliar with what he deals with. I do not know much about what he deals with, but I can tell you that it is not reality. In his mind, he redecorates reality with a Feng Shui that is pleasing to his prejudices.

Then there is the guy who thinks that the most dangerous part of HEMS is repetitive stress injury from overuse of the TV remote.

Picture Credit

A real medic would walk away from that, with the patient in one arm and the pilot over his shoulder. Piece of cake.

Just put down the remote and fly, you sissies! We need to sacrifice you on the altar of the Magic Rotor Cure! Think of the Glory!

EMS flight crew is only the most dangerous job in the US, so why not abuse them to death – the patients, too.

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Filed Under: Ethics, Fraud, Helicopters, Heresy Tagged With: , , ,

Ex-Dr. Andrew Wakefield to kids – You want to make 5 bucks the hard way?

Tue, 25 May 2010 06:28:33 -0400 by
The further adventures of Andrew Would I lie to you, too? Wakefield.

It was in the context of this research project that the Panel found that Dr Wakefield caused three of these young and vulnerable children, (nos. 3, 9 and 12) to undergo the invasive procedure of lumbar puncture when such investigation was for research purposes and was not clinically indicated. This action was contrary to his representation to the Ethics Committee that all the procedures were clinically indicated. In nine of the eleven children (2,1, 3, 4, 9, 5,12, 8 and 7) the Panel has found that Dr Wakefield acted contrary to the clinical interests of each child. The Panel is profoundly concerned that Dr Wakefield repeatedly breached fundamental principles of research medicine. It concluded that his actions in this area alone were sufficient to amount to serious professional misconduct.[1]

If you see a dirty old man hanging around the children’s playground, don’t worry, it’s probably just Ex-Dr. Andrew Wakefield waiting for the parents to wander away, so he can proposition the kids.

There is nothing wrong with propositioning children for unnecessary medical procedures.

If you don’t believe that look at all of the anti-vaccination sites defending Ex-Dr. Andrew Wakefield’s child abuse. This is considered to be protecting children. These are the people who advocate chelation and other forms of child poisoning, so ethics is not exactly their strong point. Ethics isn’t even their weak point. The anti-vaccinationists just say no to ethics. Children are just political pawns to them.

Maybe the title of this post reminds you of Rodney Dangerfield in Caddyshack.

The difference is that Rodney’s character was propositioning an adult. Andrew Wakefield propositions children, again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again.

This is important – the lumbar puncture (spinal tap) was not done for the benefit of the children. Not even a little bit. These lumbar punctures were done entirely for the benefit of Andrew Wakefield.

So, would any of us feel comfortable with Andrew Wakefield near our children?

In respect of Research and Ethics Committee approval, the Panel had regard to the particular ethical guiding principles with regard to conducting research on children. It rejected Dr Wakefield’s overall contention that Project 172-96 was never undertaken; that all the investigations carried out on the children were clinically indicated and that the research elements of the project were covered by another Ethics Committee approval.[1]

Dr Wakefield’s overall contention that Project 172-96 was never undertaken?

I did not have unnecessary spinal tap relations with those children.

I just tripped and the needle ended up in their spines.

As long as I was there, I figured I might as well get some spinal fluid samples.

And if this did happen, not that it did, it was necessary.

And if this did happen, not that it did, it was approved by the ethics committee.

And if this did happen, not that it did, I certainly would not repeat this abuse.

And then do this again.

But I definitely did not commit any other abuses.

Again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

Trust me. I, Andrew Would I lie to you, too? Wakefield, used to be a doctor before I was caught abusing children for profit.

Accordingly the Panel has determined that Dr Wakefield’s name should be erased from the medical register. The Panel concluded that it is the only sanction that is appropriate to protect patients and is in the wider public interest, including the maintenance of public trust and confidence in the profession and is proportionate to the serious and wide-ranging findings made against him.[1]

Footnotes:

^ 1 Dr Andrew Jeremy WAKEFIELD – Determination on Serious Professional Misconduct (SPM) and sanction
May 24, 2010
UK General Medical Council
Document

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Filed Under: Critical Judgment, Fraud, Heresy Tagged With: ,

Gary Null Near Death Due To Taking His Own Medicine

Thu, 29 Apr 2010 06:28:31 -0400 by

Gary Null – described on quackwatch.org as “one of the nation’s leading promoters of dubious treatment for serious disease” – claims the manufacturer of Gary Null’s Ultimate Power Meal overloaded the supplements with Vitamin D.[1]

He may be wondering if he can die from embarrassment.

“Null would later be told that if he had not flown back to New York and seen his doctor, then he could have died within a short period of time,” the suit says.[1]

It appears that only a real doctor was smart enough to recognize that the alternative medicine was what was killing him. It seems that the doctor told Null to stop taking so much drugs. All that I keep hearing from the alternative medicine apologists is that conventional real medicine is all about taking drugs and not about taking care of ourselves.

Gary Null was eating so much vitamin D, that he almost died. If you are not suffering from any deficiency or a deficient diet, there is no reason to take extra vitamins. That does not stop the alternative medicine community from preaching the wonders of what are supposed to be just placebos. Too much vitamins are supposed to just result in overly expensive urine.

Expensive urine is not the problem when you take too many fat soluble vitamins. You do not get rid of the excess of these vitamins the same way, because they are not water soluble. Any 6 year old would be able to be taught that and to understand that. Unfortunately, alternative medicine pushers do not seem to be as smart as 6 year olds.

“Null, in the midst of all this, while he was suffering in bed, had dozens of his customers calling him, along with condemning and threatening him,” the suit says. “In fact, they threatened that they would never buy any product of his ever again.”[1]

Maybe this overdose has a side effect of increasing the intelligence of those affected. Taking alternative medicine is bad for your health. When you give up on reality and start trusting in magic, you are endangering your health.

Null blames the manufacturer of his Null brand of alternative medicine magic.

Clearly this would have nothing to do with him taking something that he does not need, just because he feels a need to take drugs.

Footnotes:

^ 1 Gary Null suit vs. supplement manufacturer claims Gary Null’s Ultimate Power Meal nearly killed him
By Jose Martinez
NY Daily News
Wednesday, April 28th 2010, 4:00 AM
Article

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Filed Under: Fraud, Heresy Tagged With:
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