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Covers issues from unnecessary surgeries and prescribed drugs to preventive medicine and home births.

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The Medical Heretic Still "Rules"!

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I loved this book when it first came out in 1979, and I still love it today -- perhaps even more. The sad part is that, except for the fact that lots of the actual procedures, tests and drugs Dr. Mendelsohn wrote about in this book have changed, almost everything else seems to have remained the same. I must therefore disagree with those whose comments here suggest that things are not so bad today, and that Dr. Mendelsohn's book is therefore not as relevant as it was when it was written. For instance, one young resident wrote in his comment that "so many treatments which he [Mendelsohn] describes as ineffective or harmful have been replaced or improved." And he concludes that "thus, a lot of his criticisms are not applicable to today's medical practice." I'd like to remind people of Dr. Mendelsohn's famous quote (and my very favorite of his wonderful quotes): "Doctors don't let go of one medication until they find a more dangerous one to replace it." The same might apply to many medical procedures and diagnostic tests! In his day, Dr. Mendelsohn was a "media darling," partly because of his controversial message, and partly because of his brilliant use of witty "sound bites." He was on talk shows all the time, and he actually made a difference in the way people viewed our medical system. I have the sad feeling that, had Dr. Mendelsohn lived, our healthcare system might be in better shape today! Julia Schopick www.HonestMedicine.com

Buy this book, it may save your life!

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This is an excellent book. The author totally exposes doctors for the ruthless, money hungry tirants they truely are. Doctors have been bought and sold by the very pharmecuetical companies they promote. Yet how many doctors take their own shots? You might be supried how few of them actually do. Vacinations are unsafe and unproven to be effective. Vacinations along with amalgam, or "silver" fillings, combined create such levels of mercury exposure designed to debilitate and entrap our society. Rendering us completely dependent on the same groups of people who made us sick to aleviate our symptoms. It is so much easier to say "no" while you have the chance then to go back and try to repair the damage of mercury poisoning. In some causes it is not possible to entirely treat, but there is some help with chelation therapy and bentonite clay. If you have children, put this book at the top of your reading list. If you were given the oportunity to protect your children from autism, ADHD, Multiple Sclerosis, alzheimer's, dementia, and many other diseases, I'm sure you would take it in a heart beat. I know I have. This book has the information that can give you that chance!

Wow.... It's like meditrix...

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reading this book, it was such an engaging presentation of the idea that I read it in one sitting, was like taking the blue pill/or was it the red pill and taken for a ride in the journey that showed you the truth which was all around you in the first place. Meditrix is all around us. It's in the Obstetrician that recommends C-section as a way to preserve your vaginal canal from stretching, it's in the Pediatrician who recommends you supplement your infant's diet with formula, it's in the Dr. who recommends mastectomy in a healthy young woman with family history of breast cancer as a preventative measure. Seriously though, this book is really an eye-opener and importantly what it teaches you is how to protect yourself and your loved ones from the potential harms that doctors can afflict on you whether intentional or unintentional. It is still very applicable today because although Dr. have become better about thinking of the patient's well-being, they still got a long way to go.

great book from an insider	Customer Rating:
Yes i agree its not a scientific study but its an eye opening read!!!! its not for nothing hospitals are one of the most dangerous places in the modern world.

Insightful then, questionable now

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Confessions of a Medical Heretic was written in the late 1970s, a time when medicine bordered on religion. Back then, Mendelsohn's opinion that doctors cause disease was an uncommon and daring heresy. But now, in 2007, it is quite typical to believe that allopathic medicine is a unnecessary evil. Case in point--the previous 5-star reviewer who notes that "Americans, by and large, dislike and distrust their doctors." And without the threat of ingenuous, worshipful patient trust in a corrupt system--what's left to complain about? The corrupt system? This may be the obvious answer, but the corruption is different these days. So much of health care has moved away from reckless overuse of technology and toward "complementary medicine" that an updated book would be necessary to tackle the new issues that healthcare faces in America. For example: Mendelsohn complains of a health system corrupted by greedy, elitist doctors. In the 21st century, the culprit is more often the big health insurance company, not the lowly GP who usually earns less than a 6-figure salary and struggles to stay in business. So how can this book be dangerous? An example from my personal experience: I suffered from rheumatic fever, a life-threatening condition that killed many people before the 20th century before it was practically eradicated by the use of antibiotics. Why? I was raised in a family where Mendelsohn's attitude was gospel: "Avoid modern drugs, they will kill you." So when I got a case of strep throat, I stayed home, stayed away from the evil doctor, and developed a damaged heart valve (a consequence of rheumatic fever). The well-documented near-eradication of rheumatic fever in developed countries since the introduction of antibiotics is one statistic that I doubt Mendelsohn would argue with. Strangely, Mendelsohn avoids mentioning these kinds of statistics--but he's happy to use statistics when they suggest that doctors cause disease. With the caveat that Mendelsohn's blind distrust can be just as dangerous as the blind trust he rails against, Confessions of a Medical Heretic still offers a valuable insight regarding the treadmill effect: medical treatment can perpetuate itself unnecessarily. I would guess that up to 50% of the need for medical treatment could be avoided with better decisions on the part of providers. This does not in any way, however, invalidate "modern medicine" as a whole.