By Joseph N. Manago
America is replete with consumers using a myriad of self-prescribed, over-the-counter drugs, vitamins, minerals, inappropriate prescription dosages, and other treatments — such as chiropractic, homeopathic, acupuncture, acupressure, and psychologic — not prescribed by a licensed physician with an M.D. degree.
First, only a physician is fully trained in the biomedical and clinical sciences, through a highly competitive and rigorous medical education, to competently diagnose and treat the human body and mind. Lay persons have no such competence, despite the ease of Internet browsing.
Second, the only medical treatments which are scientifically sound are those which have been empirically verified by double-blind, randomized experiments and meta-analyses, as the Food and Drug Administration requires of prescribed drugs and other treatments.
Consumers must stop-and-desist with respect to any chemical substances or treatments which are neither authorized by American biomedical and clinical science nor prescribed by a physician.
The Scottish epistemologist, David Hume (1711-1776), concluded the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748), by asking, “Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter-of-fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.”
Bye-bye quackery, as the M.D. is king.
Joseph N. Manago
Flushing
