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In reply to the discussion: What pseudoscience is and is not. [View all]Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)Iatrogenic illnesses have little to do with 'science'. Many (probably most) simply have to do with the fact that when you go to a hospital or other healthcare facility, you're going to a place where a lot of other diseased individuals are going. Ie, areas of concentrated contamination. It's one reason why hospital stays have become far shorter over the years - the less you're exposed to the bacteria other people are bringing along, the less likely you are to pick up enough of a dose to make you sick. And you're generally doing it when you're sick or injured already, so your own defences are low. So if anything, they're proof that 'science works'. If you go to a place with a lot of nasty microbes, you're more likely to get sick.
Other iatrogenic issues arise from poorly-followed procedures, sloppiness, ignorance. Only in this last category are you going to find the sorts of issues I think you're getting at - people dying or having severe adverse reactions to drugs, because we don't understand quite enough about the drugs we give people to know for sure which patients are going to be in that tiny percentage who do not tolerate what have become 'common' medications.
So iatrogenic issues do nothing to 'disprove' science, or 'western medicine'.
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