Contrary to endocrinology guidelines and custom, suffering is unnecessary.
BERKELEY SPRINGS, W.Va., June 28, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — Over one million people—90% are women—in the US suffer (Saravanan, 2002) needlessly from medical guidelines on hypothyroidism that ban T3 treatments. Eric Pritchard's editorially acclaimed, peer-reviewed article (http://tpauk.com/images/docs/reduce-scope-final.pdf) published by the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine (www.orthomed.org), exposes the underlying improper science.
As the article states, the guidelines work for the large majority of people, because the prescribed T4 treats deficiencies of the thyroid gland (hypothyroidism). But, T4 doesn't work for many people (Means,1954) whose symptoms are caused by deficient post-thyroid physiology. These people require the operative post-thyroid hormone, T3 (Goldberg, 1960; Baisier, 2001; Wrutniak-Cabello, 2001) or related supplements. For many, T3—an FDA-approved medicine—is a life-giving elixir. Their active, attractive lives are seemingly resurrected!
Using text analysis (Justice Scalia), Pritchard shows how the guidelines do NOT address post-thyroid functions. They lack any or a proper definition for "hypothyroidism" (Pritchard, 2006) and the ban on T3 prescriptions improperly broaden these guidelines and force suffering upon post-thyroid deficient patients.
Why don't physicians simply ignore the guidelines? Although some have, the Supreme Court (Goldfarb, 1975) and a federal appeals court (Wilk, 1983) have ruled that enforced guidelines are effectively mandatory. Thus, physicians must choose between unethical patient suffering with the T4-only therapy OR prescribing T3 and risk losing their practices, claims Pritchard.
How can medical associations reject reams of scientific evidence? Pritchard states they simply ignore counterexamples. According to its great philosopher, Sir Karl Popper, science is best proved by THE LACK OF counterexamples. Medicine—alone among the sciences—IGNORES counterexamples. Or, they use the Orwellian-sounding evidence-based medicine to dismiss approximately 98% of thyroid-related research (Grozinsky-Glasberg, 2006) including all post-thyroid and most thyroid-related studies—literally hundreds!
It is difficult to overstate the suffering and despair unscientific hypothyroidism guidelines have caused and continue to cause. For patient well-being and medical rectitude, Pritchard presents convincing arguments advocating the reduction of hypothyroidism guideline scope to their scientific basis—to the thyroid gland.
Eric Pritchard, M.Sc. was educated in the exacting hard sciences of mathematics and engineering, was awarded 39 US patents, wrote articles for technical publications, and has authored two editorially acclaimed medical journal articles. He studied hypothyroidism-related medicine because his wife was initially a victim of the faulty guidelines. Treated successfully with a banned therapy, his wife's good health is yet another counterexample unscientifically dismissed by endocrinology.
Contact: Eric K. Pritchard, President, Metis Research, Inc., Email, 304-258-4799