The problems faced by surgery are matched and sometimes exceeded by problems faced by pharmaceuticals.
How do you know that?
I think it’s likely that surgeries produce more undetected long-term negative side effects than most pharmaceutical interventions. Surgeries leave scars while most pharmaceutical interventions don’t have an equivalent.
In the US, there’s a lot more “cancer detection” and then surgical intervention than in other countries and this doesn’t seem to reduce death rates by cancers. That suggests that a good chunk of those operations are essentially snake oil that doesn’t prevent death but does lead to amputations.
That effect was strong enough that under the Obama administration, there was a move to reduce cancer screening because the results were just so depressing.
Spinal fusion for chronic low back pain seems to be a pretty bad surgical interventions that an FDA-like equivalent might outlaw (or severely restrict) because it often doesn’t work and produces additional problems.
What do you think you would observe in a world where a good portion of surgical interventions are useless and harmful that you don’t observe in our world?
How do you know that?
I think it’s likely that surgeries produce more undetected long-term negative side effects than most pharmaceutical interventions. Surgeries leave scars while most pharmaceutical interventions don’t have an equivalent.
In the US, there’s a lot more “cancer detection” and then surgical intervention than in other countries and this doesn’t seem to reduce death rates by cancers. That suggests that a good chunk of those operations are essentially snake oil that doesn’t prevent death but does lead to amputations.
That effect was strong enough that under the Obama administration, there was a move to reduce cancer screening because the results were just so depressing.
Spinal fusion for chronic low back pain seems to be a pretty bad surgical interventions that an FDA-like equivalent might outlaw (or severely restrict) because it often doesn’t work and produces additional problems.
What do you think you would observe in a world where a good portion of surgical interventions are useless and harmful that you don’t observe in our world?