நவீன மருத்துவம் பற்றி பத்மபூஷன் டாக்டர் பி.எம்.ஹெக்டே!!!

நவீன மருத்துவம் பற்றி பத்மபூஷன் டாக்டர் பி.எம்.ஹெக்டே

நவீன மருத்துவத்தின் பக்க விளைவுகளையும் தீமைகளையும் வேறு துறையைச் சார்ந்த யாராவது எடுத்துச் சொன்னால் நாம் என்ன செய்வோம்?

1. ஒரு காதில் வாங்கி இன்னொரு காது வழியே விட்டு விடுவோம்.
2. விஷயம் தெரியாமல் ஏதோ கூறுகிறார் என்று அலட்சியப்படுத்திவிடுவோம்.
3. பாவம், எந்த அரைகுறை மருத்துவரிடம் மாட்டிக்கொண்டு அவதிப்பட்டாரோ என்று பரிதாபம் தெரிவிப்போம்.

ஆனால், அப்படி விஷயங்களைப் "புட்டுப்புட்டு வைத்தவர்' சாதாரண மனிதரல்ல. முன்னாள் மணிபால் பல்கலைக்கழகத் துணைவேந்தர். இங்கிலாந்தின் மிடில்ùஸக்ஸ் மருத்துவமனையில் இதய நோய்ப் பிரிவு பேராசிரியர். முதலமைச்சர்கள் உட்பட பல வி.ஐ.பி.களுக்கு மருத்துவ ஆலோசகர். பீகார் மாநில சுகாதார மருத்துவக் குழுவின் தலைவர். "ஜர்னல் ஆஃப் சயன்ஸ் அன்ட் ஹீலிங்' இதழின் முதன்மை ஆசிரியர். மருத்துவ சேவைக்காக இந்த ஆண்டு "பத்மபூஷன்' விருது பெற்றவர் டாக்டர் பி.எம்.ஹெக்டே.
கசப்பு மருந்தைச் சர்க்கரையில் தோய்த்துக் கொடுப்பதுபோல அவர் இதய பைபாஸ் சர்ஜரியையும், பிற தேவையற்ற அறுவைச் சிகிச்சைகளையும் பற்றி சிரிக்கச் சிரிக்கச் உரையாற்றினார். நம் உடலிலேயே சில மாற்றங்கள் இயற்கையாக உண்டாகி, சில கோளாறுகளைத் தானாகவே சரி செய்து கொள்கிறது என்றார்.

மருத்துவர்கள் ஸ்ட்ரைக் செய்த காலத்தில், இறப்பு விகிதம் மிகக் குறைவாகவே இருந்ததையும், அவர்கள் முழு மூச்சோடு பணியில் ஈடுபட்டபோது இறப்புகள் விகிதம் ஜிவ்வென்று அதிகரித்ததாகவும் புள்ளிவிவரங்களுடன் அவர் குறிப்பிட்டபோது சிரிப்பலை எழுந்தது.

ஹோமியோபதி மருந்துகளின் தன்மையை சிலாகித்துப் பேசினார். சில சித்த மருத்துவ முறைகளும், நீண்ட நாள் நோய்களிலிருந்து விடுதலை பெற்றுத் தந்திருப்பதைச் சுட்டிக் காட்டினார். பிராணாயாமம், தியானம் முதலியவை எவ்வாறு மனிதர்களின் ஆரோக்கிய வாழ்க்கைக்கு உதவுகின்றன என்று விளக்கினார். மருந்து தயாரிப்பு நிறுவனங்களின் நிர்ப்பந்தம் காரணமாக மருத்துவர்கள் சில மருந்துகளை "பிரிஸ்கிரிப்ஷனி'ல் எழுதிவிடுவதும், அதன் தீவிர விளைவுகள் மக்களை பாதிப்பதையும் எடுத்துச் சொன்னார் டாக்டர் ஹெக்டே.
(அவரை அறிமுகம் செய்து வைத்துப் பேசியவர், சர்க்கரை நோய் சிகிச்சை நிபுணர் டாக்டர் சி.வி.கிருஷ்ணசாமி.) பிழைக்க வாய்ப்பு இல்லாத நோயாளிகளை எப்படி மெஷின்களில் பிணைத்து, வாட்டி வதைத்த பின், "எங்களால் முடிந்தவரை பார்த்துவிட்டோம்!' என்று "பில்'லோடு ஆசாமியை ஒப்படைப்பதை நாடகம் போல விவரித்தார் டாக்டர் ஹெக்டே.
பீஹார் முதல்வர் நிதிஷ்குமாரின் மனைவிக்கு இப்படிப்பட்ட கதி நேர்ந்ததையும் "ஹெக்டே சொன்னதைக் கேட்காமல் போனது தவறு!' என்று அவர் வருந்தியதையும் குறிப்பிட்டார் டாக்டர் ஹெக்டே.

மனத்தில் உள்ள வெறுப்புகளை அகற்றினாலே பாதி நோய் பறந்துவிடும் என்றார். பாஸிட்டிவ் நினைப்புகள் ஆரோக்கிய வாழ்வுக்கு அவசியம் என வலியுறுத்தினார்.
சொற்பொழிவை விஎச்எஸ் மையமும்,டேக் மையமும் இணைந்து ஏற்பாடு செய்திருந்தன.
See this Video:

http://youtu.be/5X9DHrdvjvo

Prof. B. M. Hegde hegdebm@gmail.com: Is Cancer a Disease? The title does tickle, doesn’t it? Does it make you think? If it did, my job will have been well done. There are maximum number of myths around this word cancer, the crab that really eats into the victim’s body, and also his mind; the latter is the predominant disability of cancer, which needs care and not cure. Not a day passes without the news about miracles in cancer cures and unwanted premature deaths. It is the connection between death and disease that makes cancer that much more frightening. Man is ultimately afraid of dying. The medical fraternity keeps feeding society with all the wrong notions that diseases cause death. On the contrary, death is the only certainty in life, which has very little to do with disease. Diseases do cause disability, pain, and undue suffering. It should be the endeavour of the medical establishment to “cure rarely, comfort mostly, but to console always.” The basic truth about cancer seems to be far removed from all these myths. Cancer, in fact, is not a disease. It is a process of ageing-some of us age slowly, yet others age faster. I am talking of cell ageing and not of morphologic ageing. That explains cancers occuring even in small children. Depending on the rate of growth of a cancer, it could either outlive the victim or precede him. When the cancer starts to grow inside the human body there is always an attempt by the body’s immune system to suppress it, or to overcome it. If, in the bargain, the immune system wins, the cancer dies prematurely. The unusually high incidence of cancers in those patients with AIDS clearly proves the point. Biological cancer is a normal body cell, which has outlived its appointed time of death. Every cell in the human body, of which there are whopping one hundred thousand billion in all, have their life span cut out for them. They have to die a natural death, apoptosis (falling of a brown leaf, in Greek). A special gene, the suicide gene, which sends the message to every cell, when its time is up, governs this process. With such large number of cells belonging to so many varieties of organs and tissues, one shudders to think as to how this goes on in the majority of us without a hitch! If, for any reason, the suicide gene either fails to send the signal, or the messenger enzymes do not do their job well, the target cell might not receive the message at all. That cell could outlive its life span, but can not divide any further, since there is an upper limit for cell replication in every situation (Hayflick’s law). The cell that escapes death at the right time mutates to change its DNA, called the rogue DNA. The latter is the beginning of a potential future cancer, if it chooses to do so. It is; therefore, possible that every human being has some potential cancer or the other at all times. It is only an accident that one such could really become a clinical cancer. Ottoson in Sweden did minute postmortem study of two hundred and fifty consequitive deaths due to suicide, where he found the presence of a biological cancer in every one of them. Depression is the cause of suicide. Depression is now known to be associated with cancer, heart attacks, and many other major illnesses. Clinical cancer is that stage where the rogue DNA of the cell replicates thousands of times to produce a mass of cells that could be felt as a lump (tumour) by the doctor. Even this stage of clinical cancer could be dormant for years on end, depending on the site of the lump. When that chooses to grow rapidly and/or to grow at distant sites in addition, causing local pressure symptoms, depending on the site and the function of the organ, the victim feels the symptoms due to the growth, this stage is called symptomatic cancer. Even then it could, at times, remain dormant for years on end. At the other end of the spectrum is the tumour that could grow very fast, and produce symptoms that are disabling in a very short span of time. What is early cancer? This is the greatest myth of the century. There is no way one could detect cancer at its biological stage. Even if we could do that hypothetically, there is no way we could gauge if it is going to be a clinical cancer or not. Even at the stage of clinical cancer we have no means of saying which cancer grows and at what pace. It is near nigh impossible, by the available means, to say what would be the outcome of the cancer. Even the cytological diagnosis of cancer is only a guess, as cancer cells are, after all, normal cells with some difference. The cytological diagnosis, at times, is very tricky and difficult. Most of the time a diagnosis is a false positive one for defensive purposes. Scientifically there is nothing called early cancer from the prognostic point of view. Thomas Lewis, the former President of the world famous Sloane Kettering Cancer Institute in NewYork, wrote in his famous book The Lives of a Cell that: “ Illness and death still exist and can not be hidden. We are still beset by plain diseases, and we do not control them; they are loose on their own, afflicting as unpredictably and haphazardly. We are only able to deal with them when they make their appearance (it is better to conserve our meagre resources just for that!)…Majority of cancers can neither be prevented nor cured. We do not become sick because of failure of vigilance, diseases do not happen just because we are not preserving health.” There is nothing called early cancer, any cancer even if it is discovered “very early” could be decades old biologically and could have had the seedlings in distant organs already. The concept of early cancer, is a very good business for the screening industry though, which thrives on that myth. Teleologically, one needs to intervene only when the so-called cancer starts to produce symptoms. We have very good methods of palliation, but no cure whatsoever for cancer as of now. No one, even the best cancerologist, could predict with certainty, as to the future course of the disease. They have, of course, been predicting the unpredictable, again a good business proposition! Role of Cancer Screening: Another one of those myths sustained by intense propaganda in the medical world. Audit of all most all the properly conducted screening studies has given equivocal results. This is very obvious in the field of gynaecological cancers. Judged by the enormity of the problem this propaganda is well worth the effort and the money spent of it. In one year in the USA alone, 69,00,000 hysterectomies (uterus removals) were done for preventing cancers, based on the screening data. The story of mammograms has been still more interesting. Some governments have, at last, put a moratorium on screening young ladies. There are a couple of unconfirmed reports that wonder if mammograms could even stimulate a biologic cancer to grow faster! Although the incidence of breast cancer is very high in elderly ladies, there is very little done in that age group. Doctors, in old ladies, do not usually do even the routine breast examinations, leave alone screening. The paradox is very glaring here. There are stray reports that early detection of cancers in their pre-symptomatic stage might send the wrong signal of a death sentence to the harassed patient that makes the cancer grow faster, to produce its deleterious effects on the organ concerned. The resultant disability might even kill the victim faster. It is a well-known fact that fear could kill! Cancer could be predicted in the herd, but not in the individual. The incidence of herd cancer has not changed a wee bit over the last few decades although individual cancer incidences have shown changes. For example, the Japanese have very low incidence of stomach cancers but they compensate by very high incidence of many other cancers, compared to the Americans. The overall incidence has not changed though the numbers are higher, obviously because there are more people in the world now compared to the past! Are cancers hereditary? Herd cancers are hereditary. In individuals there is no unequivocal proof that cancers are hereditary. Environment and genes together work in any disease. What of cancer treatment? Another one of those medical myths. Small is as good as large would be a good surgical dictum in cancer surgery. The heroic surgery, with the poor patient in the hero’s role, is not warranted. Scientific studies have amply proved that lumpectomy, or local surgery to clear the pressure symptoms, are as good as the most radical extensive mutilating surgeries. The final outcome did not appreciably differ in such heroic patients. Repeated surgeries are another thing altogether. This was practised even in the distant past. Sigmund Freud had thirty-three operations over a period of sixteen years for his oral cancer. He did not die, though! Chemotherapy and radiation are again done for the overkill. Both these could kill normal cells as well as cancer cells. In fact, they kill fast growing cells more effectively, resulting in hair loss, oral mucus membrane loss, loss of testicular function, and the like. There is now a growing feeling that chemotherapy and radiation also should be done just about enough for good palliation, and symptom relief, rather than for radical cure. The latter is a pure myth in cancer. One of world’s leading cancerologists, Sir David Wetherall, Regius Professor of Medicine at the Oxford University, wrote in his recent book The Science of Medicine and its Quiet Art (Oxford Publications, 1997) thus: “The way we burn our cancer patients with powerful drugs and radiation reminds one of the branding done routinely for diseases by our forefathers. Our future generation will not forgive us for this blunder.” Having said all this, I am aware of the anger and wrath I shall incur from my friends and colleagues. I used to get upset about it when I was young, but I have grown to ignore that now. I was reading in the recent issue of the British Medical Journal about the lamentations of its brilliant editor, Richard Smith, about the abuses heaped on him week after week, when his journal reaches the readers. “The earlier you are fired the better for the nation”, “ You should end up as a street sweeper after being fired from the editorship of the BMJ” etc. I am not alone in this world in my travails. There is good company. Richard Smith is a very fine man and an excellent scientist, in addition, he has been considered one of the ablest editors of that prestigious journal, which has undergone sea changes after Richard took up the challenge as its editor! If what I have written gives courage to the hapless victims of cancer, and makes my colleagues to start thinking, my efforts will have been amply rewarded. Cancer need not kill always- with or without treatment. Fear kills faster! Cancer might even keep one alive and kicking for as long as thirty to forty years. If one takes its biological state into consideration, it could be even fifty to sixty years. Many cancers, especially of the prostrate gland, have outlived their owners! Happiness of the mind is known to kill cancers or suppress their growth, while depression is known to stimulate biologically quiescent cancers to grow very rapidly and wildly. Prasanna aatham indriya manaha Swastha Ithyabhideeyathe. ( Happiness keeps you healthy!) “Never try to live for ever, you will certainly not succeed,” wrote Bernard Shaw in the Doctor’s Dilemma.