Death by Medicine

January 18, 2010
With help from a trio of MDs, radio host and alternative medicine advocate Null (Gary Null's Power Food, etc.), takes on the current state of U.S. health care with a controversy-courting sense of moral outrage. Though focused on what the Institute of Medicine (part of the NSA) has called "the nation's epidemic of medical errors," Null also exposes lax regulation at the FDA, and a science-defying bias against natural foods in government and the media in general: "Something is wrong when regulatory agencies pretend that vitamins and nutritional supplements are dangerous." Pushing back against the well-connected pharmaceutical industry, Null pulls from a number of mainstream sources to make a valuable, alarming case that "the American medical system is the leading cause of death and injury in the U.S." Null finds shocking facts hidden in plain sight, such as Senate testimony from a 20-year FDA employee stating that the organization failed to act promptly even in the case of a drug-induced fatality. Null also makes a case against certain common procedures he finds unnecessary or overprescribed, including chemotherapy, going so far as to suggest that chemotherapy actually causes more cancers to form. Though readers may feel Null going occasionally overboard, anyone with a horse in the health care race is sure to be intrigued and provoked.