Saturday, January 23, 2010

"Science" to the Rescue (Healing Touchers and "Doctor" Asa Andrew)


There's hard money to be earned in the traditional allopathic or osteopathic route, but there's some damned easy money to be made by the disciples of 'scientology' and 'lifestyle medicine'.

Now I will be the first to admit that the scientology creeps are actually in Haiti and I am not. Ten points for their side, but here's what they are doing. I imagine that these skilled practitioners of jack-shit will be able to open clinics and start seeing patients when they return from healing the nervous systems of the Haitian earthquake victims.

And I just can't let it go... I'm starting to hear on some syndicated AM radio show a guy who calls himself "Dr. Asa Andrew" and he is very interested in helping me "lifestyle my way" back to good health. He fields calls and gives answers which usually go something like this... "Your migraine, if on the left side is caused by an arginine deficiency, and if on the right, is caused by an iron deficiency." He recommends taking 'probiotics' with meals and is very against sugar and even soy. Now the soy thing, that caught me off guard! He will also glowingly make an ass of himself when he tries to talk traditional medicine by stating that an h. pylori test is done on the stool (normally not), and that the bacteria h. pylori can be wiped out by bismuth salts 'like pepto bismol', but the 'organic ones' are better, no doubt the very ones he has, conveniently for sale, at his very upscale and feng shui clinic.

Just for the record, bismuth salts can be part of the treatment for h. pylori ulcer disease, but many current regimens simply use a proton pump inhibitor and some antibiotics. Oh how much money I would pay to see him on rounds in the SICU being peppered with questions by a disbelieving CT Surgeon who, at the end of my fantasy, stabs him in the heart with a trochar which he never thought he would have to use in that fashion.

Then I do a little research and go look at this guy's site because I figure he's one of those MDs who is really into the metabolic treatment of disease by using le chatelier's principle and loading people with amino acids or depriving them of others in order to tilt particular biochemical equations the way they should go, but no.

This colossal ass is not a medical doctor, he's a chiropractor who does not advertise the fact, rather, everything this guy does is intended to make the casual listener think he's an MD. Look at the nice stethoscope he wears on his website! I am flummoxed and amazed that this guy has a radio and publishing empire because he has, no doubt played a big part in making people sick or hastening their deaths with his recommendation of goat's milk for brain cancer, and the like. Is he immune from malpractice because he doesn't create a doctor patient relationship on his show? Someone, please, tell me. He's giving people 'ionic foot bath detoxification treatments' in his office for the sake of all that is good and pure! There is less than zero science behind this, but why let that get in the way... the water changes color and everything... aren't those 'toxins' that are coming out through the bottom of your feet?

At the same time, I know there will always be people like "Dr. Asa" and the goofball "healing touch" scientologits. People want their snake oil. For whatever reason, they love their snake oil, hope and change, whatever the flavor of the day is. Dr. Asa, here's a 'lifestyle' question for you... How much malpractice insurance do you carry. I figure it's either a tremendously high amount, or zero. You probably have your callers agree on tape before talking to you that your advice is 'for entertainment purposes only'. You are the first douche of the month on MDOD for the new decade. Congratulations. Douche.




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And if Dr. Asa can make millions without having to do the usual science stuff like, uh... research and boring other things, then maybe you guys would enjoy sending a few shekels my way by visiting our sponsor, Scrubs Gallery, and using the following coupon for a nice discount...

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13 comments:

  1. 911 thanks for posting this. I hate those bastards with the white-hot heat of 10,000 suns. It just burns me up because they peddle this bs to innocent people who don't get science and they believe in it and then people spend millions and die. It just pisses me off. My mom's internist tried to send her to this chelation bitch out of New Orleans who sells amino complexes for millions of dollars and I just told her mom, it's all crap. Stick with real medicine and save your money.

    My brother in law is a doctor of Chinese medicine and he's decided to go to med school LOL. When he's sick he goes to the real doctor.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I really need to think up some douchebag products and make meself some $$$.

    It's like they follow an EZ product recipe of a) fast, visible "results" (that are fake, in case you couldn't tell from the sarcastic quote marks) and b) little effort on the buyer's part. And late night infomercials. Yeah.

    What do y'all think of the MDs/DOs who ENDORSE this stuff on those infomercials?

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  3. There's not a day goes by when some patient refuses to take a prescribed medication, opting instead to ingest spider scrotum or some other nonsense for their chronic disease state. This is, of course, justified by the statement, "I don't like putting foreign substances in my body."
    Gives me the strong desire to bleach out my memory.

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  4. Amy, I've never understood Split-Tails, I mean Women...
    10,000 Suns!?!?! Really, wouldn't ONE Sun be enough?? It's 9,900 degrees Fahrenheit at the Surface and Temperature's not a Scalar unit, like inches, where if you had 10,000 of my penisis you'd have something about 20,000, I mean 100,000 inches long. OK, 10,000 Suns would be pretty hot, but it wouldn't be 10,000 times 9,900 degrees and I think once you get to 30-40 Suns any increased heat isn't worth the expense, not to mention with todays technology we can't even move 1 Sun...

    Frank

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  5. And not to be a sticker for detail, but the Sun's more Yellow than White, a G-Type Main Sequence Star to be exact, although it will turn White toward the end of its life, some 10 Billion years from now, or next month, if you believe Al Gore. And in addition to the Massive Engineering required to move 10,000 Suns, you'd have to go all the way to Alpha Centauri, some 1.34 Parsecs, 4.37 Light Years, or I forget how many miles that is, but its a LONG way off as the Crow Flies, and thats just to get TWO Suns..
    Better to be like Elizabeth Edwards and just...
    umm I'm not sure what she did..

    Frank

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  6. Oh Yeah, she wrote a Sanctimonious Self Serving Book and slandered her Slimey Husband's Girlfriend...did whatever she did to her Husband's privates in private..


    do that...

    Frank

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  7. The two type of "doctors" that always make me want to smack them upside the head and tell them to get real jobs are chiropracters and homeopaths. In pharmacy school I took a class on alternative medicine because I needed to fill an elective. We had guest speaker from a number of different practitioners, most of whom were drinking their own cool-aid, only the traditional chinese medicine speaker admitted that breaking a bone, heart attack, ect needed to be treated in the hospital and not him. The chiropracter refused to show up because we "wouldn't believe and respect him". The homeopath showed up but pissed alot of people off. It is not wise to tell a pharmacy college we need to "stop pushing toxic allopathic substances" and "suspend our belief in traditional logic", no one could see to understand how making something more dilute would make it stronger and therefore a "prescription" item. We also never could grasp the concept that water holds the memory of molecules that were diluted in it; that was the explanation for the 30x (10 to the 30th power) dilution that he claimed was powerful. Passing the mythical Avogadro's number where there is zero molecules left in that dilution in theory makes little sense. All his clients were paying for was overpriced water or ethanol.

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  8. I will pass this along, in case I have not shared it with you before. For those of you wanting to make some "snake oil" money on the side, fill an empty vial with some colored water and put this label on it:

    Dr X's Miraclemycin

    For colds, moles, sore assholes, freckles, farts, and scabs about the elbows. Also good for the fits and the shits, and makes childbirth a pleasure.

    ---------------

    One of the nurses who worked with my dad came up with that and put it on an empty bottle (It looked like one of the Combiotic bottles we had at home for veterinary use.)

    You're welcome.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Hey Pharmacy Intern, the only "Doctors" that piss me off are the PhDs who made my life miserable in College and Med School, and PHARMACISTS...
    Really, how do you justify makin 6 figures for countin pills and scaring patients to death about drug sideeffects??
    Oh yeah, you just Supervise the minimum wage serfs that actually fill the pill bottles and scare the patients about sideeffects...
    Just last week I recommended a medication for a patient, patient called me, said it could cause GI bleeding, Metabolic Acidosis, and Anaphylaxis...Last time I tell someone to take a Baby Aspirin....
    Thats the only Up side to Healthcare Reform...might wanta work some Overtime Jerk, ain't gonna be no Pill Counters makin Large Coin with Single Payer...

    Frank

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  10. Hm. How about this for and MDOD product to remove toxins via the soles of the feet: Genuine Organic Cotton socks. Proof they remove toxins? Wear them 24 hours straight and they stink. Millions of molecules of toxins removed by each pair.

    Remember, the higher the price charged, the better they work.

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  11. Had an interview with a chiropractor when I was looking for an easy office management job to fit into my class schedule a while back. Other than get him paid, my job was to get to know the patients very well, so they would open up to me about how they feel, symptoms, hx, what other docs have told them, etc. I was to not let them know my background. Just casual, remember chat it up, girl talk. I was to heavily brief him on the info I gained right before calling them back. Well, I found out that he would use this info as a cheat so that when he did his touchy feely thing to assess them he could astound them by suggesting they might currently or in the past have the very same just by his knowledge gained by his "manipulation".

    Needless to say, I said no deal loser. He's still in business, I drove by his office the other day.

    -SCNS

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  12. harrumph and huzzah for unsupported anonymous generalizations!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Dr. Asa looks more like a pervy high school gym teacher. I suppose he's the definition of a face made for radio.

    ReplyDelete

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