The preventable deaths determined in the prior studies are those that can be traced to medical errors. Human errors are actions and decisions that should not have taken place. They naturally do not include actions and decisions that are consistent with what is required under the standard of care. If I show that medicine has systematic flaws in the research model and treatment model that actually cause death, shorten lives, or is responsible for premature deaths, then number of actual deaths attributable to medicine is different from the preventable deaths determined from human errors. All deaths attributed to medicine include those caused by medical systematic errors and those caused by human errors. The deaths caused by chronic diseases are estimated to be about 30 million each year in the world. Medicine is unable to prevent those premature deaths because the medical models are fatally flawed. 

We have proved that four key presumptions used in medicine are wrong [9]. Those presumptions are: diseases can be studied by population trials, mind and body are separated; and treatment can be based on one or few things, and disease can be defined by using arbitrary two-value scale. We have proved by producing irrefutable evidence that those presumptions are wrong. Due to use of those flawed presumptions, “diseases” to be treated in medicine is remote from the real diseases in the human body. When the model is wrong, the treatment methods must be inferior, useless and even dangerous. In addition, we also proved that health properties are not transferable from person to person. This implies that treatments developed from using mathematical models are improper although mathematical models may be used for other purposes. Our finding also implies that statistics have been misused in most situations in medicine.  

Medicine has failed for more than one hundred years without knowing all causes of its failures. Failures of medicine were discussed by Physician T. Cole, a Physician to Royal United Hospital, Bath, in the British Medical Journal 145 years ago. 

1. Concerning disease-based treatment model, Mr. Cole stated:

“….It must be confessed that the routine practice which follows too close an embrace of this doctrine is most illogical and pernicious. It is just as absurd to treat the disease and not the patient as it is to treat the patient and not the disease...  Both ought to be the subjects of treatment: the disease in the patient.”  He correctly pointed out that the disease-based approach is unworkable. 

2. Concerning causes of diseases, he stated: 

“Nor ought we to lose sight of the causes of ill-health, which may fitly, in many instances, be called entities, and by their quality to impart a specific element to most maladies of the utmost importance in regard to treatment.” 

This is at least one reason of failure of medicine. By focusing on disease causes, he would not favor treatments that are developed by randomized controlled trails. 

3. Concerning factors that influence diseases, he wrote:

“Thus, taking into consideration the varied causes of the diseases which attack us, as well as all the modifications they undergo in their different subjects from peculiarities of temperament, time, place, and other perturbing influences, we can institute a plan of treatment calculated either to remove the disease or restore the patient.”  

The quoted language indicates that diseases must be treated by focusing on person, cause, and physical and environmental factors, etc.

4. He went on in length to discuss mind-body interactions:

“It is not merely a machine, of which we thoroughly understand the mechanism, that engages our attention; but it is a highly organized being, about whose structure and functions we know very little indeed, and whose body is not only under the control of the mind and higher faculties, but also reacts upon them…. A thousand refined influences, moral, mental, and emotional, are sufficient to perturb our analytical scrutiny. “What medicine can minister to a mind diseased?" expresses but one side of the truth. How little can medicines avail in diseases of the body, over which the mind and passions hold sway. Under ordinary circumstances, the intricacy of the matter is great enough; but, when we add to it idiosyncrasies of mind and body, we become more and more entangled in its meshes....The laws that govern these uncertainties have not yet been elucidated, and, until they are, idiosyncrasy will ever be a stumbling-block in our way. It is probable that the nervous system is the theatre of most of the diseases which afflict us.

He not only recognized the crucial role of mind on diseases, but also stressed the great differences in mind. He even suspected that the nervous system is the command center of most of the diseases which afflict us.

5. Concerning the role of Nature in treating diseases, he stated:

 “Diseases vary in severity.  Climate, season, the presence of other diseases must be considered….This inability to estimate the part which Nature takes in the cure of disease is a great source of error in experimental inquiries into the action of remedies, and seriously retards the development of therapeutic science….”

6. Concerning drugs and side effects, he stated:

“There are fashions in drugs, as in everything else, and we are not philosophical enough to escape the contagion. Therapeutic Sniders are constantly being invented, warranted to slay every disease at which they are aimed; but how often they disappoint by hitting wide of the mark, or by bursting after being used a few times. Sometimes they are so unskillfully handled as to kill either the reputation of the medical man or the unfortunate patient himself.

In 1875, randomized controlled trials had not gained widespread abuse, but he was able to correctly characterize the role of person in diseases, cause of influencing factors, the mind’s special roles, the role of nature, and drug side effects. By stressing the cause and influencing factors, he did not support the reductionist approach. He rejected dualism. He supported the natural remedy and natural healing process. Unfortunately, his critical thinking did not gain attention in medicine in 145 years. One obvious difficulty was that his vision could not be proved in the past. 

Proof of benefits of personalized medicine was unavailable in those years when the medical field had been dominated by flawed research models.  Even though ancient medical practitioners including Physician Cole was able to recognize the benefits of personalized medicine, the role of mind, environmental factors, drug side effects, modern medicine continues progressing on the wrong track. The massive findings based on misused statistical analysis kept producing false results. 

Until after 1980, truth about diseases came out from massive research findings. Human genome was published in 2001; massive studies concerning disease causes and risk factors are published [9], and massive studies on the roles of CNS on stem cells, immune system and macrophages were discovered. Unique disease principle was proposed for cancer in 2012 [7, 8]. The differences between different persons in three dimensions have been firmly established by thousands of studies. 

I found that all failures described by Mr. Cole, as a whole, are correct. To put the end to the century failure of medicine, we have proved by mathematical models that randomized controlled trials were misused. The general rule is that any findings by using randomized controlled trials must produce useless and wrong results as long as at least one interference factor can sufficiently interfere with the treatment under investigation. We further found that health property cannot be added up and divided to yield an average to represent any person. The reason is that every person has a unique biochemical and cellular process network. Any measured process attributes in each person is distinct and unique, and cannot be changed per population average.  This means that any treatment developed by following population trials must be poor, ineffective, useless and even dangerous.

Medicine could not correct flaws in the foundation of medicine for the last 145 years [9]. We extensively searched for the causes of failure and the inability to correct flaws in medicine. While in the eighteenth century, the key factor responsible for the failure of medicine is technological state, the key factors causing failure of medicine in the last five decades are mainly the legal framework and uncontrolled incentives for promoting revenue-generating drugs. The science has enough knowledge for building a new foundation for new medicine. Even though, medicine appears to be an open system that anyone can publish research articles, medical knowledge is tightly controlled by the published companies that have great financial stakes. We found by irrefutable evidence [9] that (1) medical articles are published by using the publishing-for-money trade; (2) drug industry has influenced medicine by various means to narrow down medicine from full original scope to only drugs, surgery, radiation and medical devices; (3) the pool of medical knowledge is full of obsolete, wrong, and inaccurate theories and practices that cannot be corrected; and (4) future research is always molded by what appears in published articles. When each of those things are run and controlled by a billion dollar industry, medicine is capable of only producing useless, ineffective, and even dangerous treatments. 

All true cures that are from nature, developed in evolution, or otherwise carried in human genome have never been explored in the entire 145 years simply because they cannot produce revenues for any companies in the multi-billion dollars industry. Human health culture and health wisdom have been destroyed so that nearly half of the U.S. population can be put on prescription drugs. It is money that decides proper medical research subjects, legitimate treatment options in doctors’ offices, reimbursable medical treatments under Medicare programs, legally protected treatments, etc. Medicine has turned its scope to only one tiny fraction of the original scope of medicine; there is no merit for curing diseases.

The failure history of medicine is really a big puzzle. Physician Cole was able to correctly make observations on all issues concerning medical failures, but modern research findings could not tell whether treatment methods have real benefits. All chronic diseases are still regarded as having no cures, and responsive rates of cancer drugs are often less than 5% (and even such terribly low responsive rates are subject to disputes). We have to find when medicine is used to achieve maximum revenues; the flawed science can be easily manipulated to produce false or misleading “scientific” evidence. When medicine translates from flawed science to money science, no medical treatments can be trusted. 

Actual deaths caused by human errors comprise only a small percent of all deaths caused by failed medicine. All model problems can be regarded as systematic errors in medicine. When systematic errors were unknown, all deaths and injuries that could not be attributed to human errors were taken as unavoidable deaths. The biggest adverse effects of systematic errors are that medicine fails to help patients to live normal lives but puts them on prescription drugs in lifetimes. 

Due to vested financial interests of involved companies in the medical industry, the medical system provides no incentive for anyone to correct the flaws in medicine.  I estimate that in the last 145 years, billions of people have been negatively affected directly or indirectly by useless, ineffective and often dangerous medical treatments. By examining the findings from studies done in the last 20 years, I found that overwhelming medical theories and practices were wrong or inaccurate and most errors have not been corrected, nor it is possible to correct. When medical research and development is controlled and run by billion dollars business, the only incentives are to find all treatments that can generate the largest profits. Some treatments only make disease worse, shorten human lives or inflict patients with additional pains and suffering. 

The medical industry has a built-in, increasing inertia to promote revenues with little incentive to bring cures for mankind. If medicine is allowed to continue its current state for another 145 years, the health landscape is expected to be even worse. It is not sure whether human beings are able to maintain population given the rapid loss in sperm counts in males. The flawed clinical trials will never enable mankind to find cause of this problem. The only hope to change this terrible medical landscape is if everyone takes action: staying away from using any treatments for non-emergent chronic diseases and urging national governments to reform medicine so that medical treatments must have the ability to cure diseases at least for some patients.

REFERENCES

1. Kohn LT, Corrigan JM, Donaldson MS, eds. To Err Human: Building a Safer Health System. Washington, DC: National Academies Press; 2000.

2. McDonald CJ, Weiner M, Hui SL. Deaths due to medical errors are exaggerated in Institute of Medicine report. JAMA. 2000;284(1):93-95.

3. Hayward RA, Hofer TP. Estimating hospital deaths due to medical errors: preventability is in the eye of the reviewer. JAMA. 2001;286(4):415-420.

4. Brennan TA, Leape LL, Laird NM, et al. Incidence of adverse events and negligence in hospitalized patients. Results of the Harvard Medical Practice Study I. N Engl J Med. 1991;324(6):370-376.

5. James JT. A new, evidence-based estimate of patient harms associated with hospital care. J Patient Saf 2013; 9:122-128.

6.  T. Cole. Failures of Medicine. British Medical Journal. 1875; Nov. 6; 579-582.

7. Ogino S, Fuchs CS, Giovannucci E. How many molecular subtypes? Implications of the unique tumor principle in personalized medicine. Expert Rev Mol Diagn. 2012;12(6): 621–8.

8. Ogino S, Lochhead P, Chan AT et al. Molecular pathological epidemiology of epigenetics: Emerging integrative science to analyze environment, host, and disease. Mod Pathol. 2013;26(4): 465–84.

9. Wu J, Zha P.  Flaws in Medicine Must Be Corrected: An Open Report to National Governments amid the Pandemic. Eliva Press, 2020.


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