Today’s medical theories suffer from many cure ignorances. We want to believe that medicines cure, that medicines are designed to cure, that clinical studies search for cures, that a cure is just around the corner: the Medicines Myths. In truth, most medicines make no claim to cure, and simply do cannot cure. Most clinical studies cannot test for cures – ‘cured’ is seldom defined for a clinical study, and if it occurs, it is generally ignored. Clinical studies search for treatments, not cures. No one is searching for cures for most diseases. Cure ignorance.
Many current medical dictionaries do not contain the word ‘cure’. Medical reference texts like MERCK”s Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy, Harrison’s Guide to Internal Medicine, and Lange’s Current Medical Diagnosis and Treatment do not define cure and seldom use the word cure. When they do, it is not used consistently.
Cure is a forbidden word in the practice of medicine. Many nurses are advised in training to NEVER use the word cure. More and more diseases are being classed as incurable, although it is not possible to prove that any illness is incurable – we can only prove an illness curable, or fail to do cure it.
Which illnesses are incurable? There are lots of nonsense debates. Years ago, Wikipedia had a page with a long list of incurable diseases. In 2010, Wikipedia’s editors removed the page ‘incurable diseases’. Why? According to Wiki editors, ‘this is a list with no clear-cut criteria for inclusion‘, and ‘the lack of any sourcing to indicate that the majority of these are indeed considered “incurable”‘. One editor commented ‘Absolutely pointless grab-bag of medical conditions. No attempt at referencing. Unlikely to ever become useful.‘
Today, Wikipedia has a new list of incurable diseases, created in 2016, it’s still nonsense. The nonsense begins with the first two sentences, which contradict each other: “This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.” followed by: “This is a comprehensive list of incurable diseases. It includes both physical and mental diseases.” Wikipedia does not understand that every illness can be cured, nor that no disease can be cured.
The common cold is a perfect example of Wiki’s nonsense. (note: Wiki pages change, but not consistently, these quotes are as of January 2017).
Wiki’s page for ‘cure’ says “When a person has the common cold, and then recovers from it, the person is said to be cured, even though the person might someday catch another cold.”
Wiki’s page for the ‘common cold‘ says “No cure for the common cold exists, but the symptoms can be treated.”
Wiki’s list of incurable diseases contains the common cold, and says “The common cold is a disease that mutates too frequently, and is rarely fatal, for a vaccine or cure to be created.” Not only nonsense – in logic, it’s nonsense in the English language as well.
It is not possible to prove that any illness is incurable. We can try to cure. We can fail or succeed. If we fail, we know little or nothing. If we succeed, we know it has been cured.
It’s trivial to create a list of diseases that are incurable in today’s medical theory. Just search for cures in medical reference texts like MERCK, Lange’s, and Harrison’s. You will quickly learn that almost all diseases not caused by parasites are judged incurable — by omission of a cure. No cures are documented for most diseases. Many illnesses caused by parasites are also judged to be incurable – most notably those caused by viruses. Cured is not defined for any disease not caused by a parasite. When cured is not defined, cured cannot be tested, cannot be proven, the disease is incurable. Cure ignorance = incurable disease.
If you gather all of the incurable diseases into one set, you might notice something trivial.
All diseases that are cured by health are incurable, according to modern medicine. If it can’t be cured with a medicine, it is incurable.
The common cold can only be cured by health. If you are healthier, you get fewer colds, and they are cured faster. But the common cold is incurable according to the current theory of medicine. If you cure your cold, the cure is ignored. But, let’s look at an illness much simpler, in theory, than the common cold.
You might think that scurvy is curable. But I’ve checked three prestigious medical references, and learned that the word ‘cure’ is not used. Two of the three medical references (MERCK, Lange’s and Harrison’s) recommend a ‘treatment’ that cannot cure. There is no ‘cure’ defined for scurvy, and there is no test for ‘scurvy cured’. Scurvy is cured by a healthy diet. We know that. The medical experts know that. The reference book writers know it too. But they don’t use the word cure. This increases our cure ignorance. Only one of the three mentions the actual curative treatment – but does not call it a cure. Officially, there is no cure for scurvy, because of cure ignorance. When scurvy is cured, the cure is ignored.
Medicine has no theory of cure. None. The theory of cure is trivial, but you won’t find it in any medical text or reference.
How do we create a theory of cure? We start with what we know, from the medical reference texts. An illness caused by a parasite is cured when the parasitic infection is addressed.
We can generalize this definition to:
A illness is cured when the cause is addressed.
This is a simple, clear definition, that can be tested scientifically. It also clarifies the definition of diseases, separating those that can be cured from those that can be healed. We don’t expect to cure a handicap. We do not expect to cure an amputated leg, and we should not expect to cure a diabetes patient with ‘no islet cells’.
A simple, clear definition of cured facilitates agreement on whether or not an illness has been cured. Someone might ask the question: “How can we know the cause has been addressed?” In truth, maybe we can’t know anything? But we can investigate, learn and come to agreements. When we agree that the cause was addressed, and the illness was cured, the cure is true.
to your health, tracy
