Women - Prime Targets For Unnecessary Surgeries
OVER PRESCRIBED PROCEDURES Ranked high among the most over prescribed and frequently performed medical procedures are the hysterectomy and cesarean section.
In the frantic and breakneck pursuit of profits, the medical business places women at the top of the list for high risk, high profit procedures that they don't really need.
The simple greed that fuels this push for unnecessary surgeries has reached epidemic proportions and is not likely to be abated any time soon.
THE NUMBERS ARE STAGGERING There are an estimated 920,000 cesarean sections performed every year, giving that procedure the distinction of being the most common major surgery in America, most of them unneeded.
There are about 750,000 hysterectomies performed every year, 90% of which are totally unnecessary, according to Dr Herbert Goldfarb, a gynecologist and assistant clinical professor at New York University's School of Medicine.
And each year, 2500 women die during the operation; healthy women who go into the hospital and don't come out.
Women with urinary incontinence are often advised to get hysterectomies along with bladder surgery, neither of which effectively deals with the disorder.
A simpler and more effective solution to urinary incontinence in women would be to simply stop smoking.
There are numerous studies out there that indicate conclusively that surgery and the use of drugs are not necessary and better options for treatment abound; behavioral techniques, biofeedback, kegel exercises, and acupuncture among them.
OSTEOPOROSIS WAITING IN THE WINGS Another argument against the hysterectomy is the well defined risk factor of early osteoporosis associated with the procedure.
This is because a significant number of women who undergo hysterectomies then suffer from premature loss of ovarian function, or have their ovaries removed during the procedure.
Either way, this then results in rapid bone loss.
The most common OB/GYN surgical procedure is the Cesarean Section.
Twenty-four percent of all births in the U.
S.
occur with a C-Section.
This as opposed to the Netherlands, where only 8% of births are by C-Section.
And in spite of this disparity, American women can point to no health benefits derived from the inordinate use of this surgery.
What the whole thing amounts to is that there are about 640,000 unnecessary C-Sections done in the U.
S.
every year with a morbidity rate (death of mother, child, or both) that is 20 times greater than in vaginal birth.
WHERE IS THE MALPRACTICE? Unnecessary surgery is not considered medical malpractice! In the U.
S.
, there are 75 million unnecessary surgeries performed annually, raising the cost of health care to astronomical levels, and it doesn't look like the practice will stop any time soon.
It's just too profitable.
In 1985, the U.
S.
Senate Special Committee on Aging found that unnecessary operations were not just wasting money, they were actually shortening lives! Billions of dollars were being wasted on unnecessary surgeries, with these operations increasing by 30% after Medicare went into effect.
Even the American College of Surgeons and the American Surgical Association conceded that 30% of the millions of procedures performed each year were unnecessary surgeries.
WOMEN NEED TO EDUCATE THEMSELVES The consensus of alternative physicians who are deeply concerned about this issue is that the best defense against being coerced into an unnecessary hysterectomy, or any other surgery, is information! Add to that, a second opinion.
Or a second diagnostic test.
Every woman is urged to get all the information she can get before meeting with her doctor.
Read books.
Find people who've had the surgery.
Seek out alternatives, they're all too often out there! Contact support groups.
Get good medical literature.
When she has her information, her options, risks, and dangers, she should present it all to her doctor in a non adversarial way.
If she meets with resentment, antagonism, or indifference, she is urged to find another doctor.
She needs to take control of making her own decisions.
Women, who are at an extraordinarily high risk of being subjected to unnecessary surgeries need to be particularly alert to the possibility of enduring a procedure they don't need.
To this end it's advisable to be informed well in advance of any impending problems with their health and have a plan in place for dealing with them if and when they occur.
Fortunately today, the internet is teeming with information; some of it good, much of it worthless, most of it with a commercial agenda.
Wading through all this stuff can be daunting and locating correct and unbiased information can be tedious and time consuming.
But the time used in this effort can be time well spent.
In the frantic and breakneck pursuit of profits, the medical business places women at the top of the list for high risk, high profit procedures that they don't really need.
The simple greed that fuels this push for unnecessary surgeries has reached epidemic proportions and is not likely to be abated any time soon.
THE NUMBERS ARE STAGGERING There are an estimated 920,000 cesarean sections performed every year, giving that procedure the distinction of being the most common major surgery in America, most of them unneeded.
There are about 750,000 hysterectomies performed every year, 90% of which are totally unnecessary, according to Dr Herbert Goldfarb, a gynecologist and assistant clinical professor at New York University's School of Medicine.
And each year, 2500 women die during the operation; healthy women who go into the hospital and don't come out.
Women with urinary incontinence are often advised to get hysterectomies along with bladder surgery, neither of which effectively deals with the disorder.
A simpler and more effective solution to urinary incontinence in women would be to simply stop smoking.
There are numerous studies out there that indicate conclusively that surgery and the use of drugs are not necessary and better options for treatment abound; behavioral techniques, biofeedback, kegel exercises, and acupuncture among them.
OSTEOPOROSIS WAITING IN THE WINGS Another argument against the hysterectomy is the well defined risk factor of early osteoporosis associated with the procedure.
This is because a significant number of women who undergo hysterectomies then suffer from premature loss of ovarian function, or have their ovaries removed during the procedure.
Either way, this then results in rapid bone loss.
The most common OB/GYN surgical procedure is the Cesarean Section.
Twenty-four percent of all births in the U.
S.
occur with a C-Section.
This as opposed to the Netherlands, where only 8% of births are by C-Section.
And in spite of this disparity, American women can point to no health benefits derived from the inordinate use of this surgery.
What the whole thing amounts to is that there are about 640,000 unnecessary C-Sections done in the U.
S.
every year with a morbidity rate (death of mother, child, or both) that is 20 times greater than in vaginal birth.
WHERE IS THE MALPRACTICE? Unnecessary surgery is not considered medical malpractice! In the U.
S.
, there are 75 million unnecessary surgeries performed annually, raising the cost of health care to astronomical levels, and it doesn't look like the practice will stop any time soon.
It's just too profitable.
In 1985, the U.
S.
Senate Special Committee on Aging found that unnecessary operations were not just wasting money, they were actually shortening lives! Billions of dollars were being wasted on unnecessary surgeries, with these operations increasing by 30% after Medicare went into effect.
Even the American College of Surgeons and the American Surgical Association conceded that 30% of the millions of procedures performed each year were unnecessary surgeries.
WOMEN NEED TO EDUCATE THEMSELVES The consensus of alternative physicians who are deeply concerned about this issue is that the best defense against being coerced into an unnecessary hysterectomy, or any other surgery, is information! Add to that, a second opinion.
Or a second diagnostic test.
Every woman is urged to get all the information she can get before meeting with her doctor.
Read books.
Find people who've had the surgery.
Seek out alternatives, they're all too often out there! Contact support groups.
Get good medical literature.
When she has her information, her options, risks, and dangers, she should present it all to her doctor in a non adversarial way.
If she meets with resentment, antagonism, or indifference, she is urged to find another doctor.
She needs to take control of making her own decisions.
Women, who are at an extraordinarily high risk of being subjected to unnecessary surgeries need to be particularly alert to the possibility of enduring a procedure they don't need.
To this end it's advisable to be informed well in advance of any impending problems with their health and have a plan in place for dealing with them if and when they occur.
Fortunately today, the internet is teeming with information; some of it good, much of it worthless, most of it with a commercial agenda.
Wading through all this stuff can be daunting and locating correct and unbiased information can be tedious and time consuming.
But the time used in this effort can be time well spent.
