Most people would consider a knife wound to the stomach a serious health risk, but a similar scalpel wound in an operating room is often shrugged off. In "Doctors Are More Harmful Than Germs," Dr. Harvey Bigelsen explains how today's medical doctors overprescribe surgery and ignore its long-term health implications. Any invasive medical procedure, he argues--including colonoscopies and root canals--creates inflammation in the body, leading to serious and long-lasting health problems.
Inflammation, according to Dr. Bigelsen, is the real cause of all chronic disease (persistent or long-lasting illness). Noting that Western medicine has yet to "cure" a single chronic disease, Bigelsen points to a new paradigm: one that treats each patient as an individual (rather than as a set of symptoms), avoids further damage to the body through surgery, and looks for the root cause of chronic disease in past damage done to the patient's body--whether caused by a bad fall or a scalpel. Provocatively written and radical in its approach, "Doctors Are More Harmful Than Germs" challenges readers to rethink everything they believe about illness and how to treat it.

Reviews

"Bigelsen, a 30-year veteran of the medical industry and co-founder of the American Holistic Medical Association, sounds the alarm on the overwrought state of modern medicine. He argues that surgery often does more harm than good and few patients escape without lasting trauma, warning against trends like 'one-stop surgery, ' where doctors take care of many maladies with one procedure. The author rails against an overdependence on damaging antibiotics as a catch-all in treating the symptoms rather than eliminating the root cause of an ailment. Using statistics, charts and illustrations, Bigelsen justifies theories on disease transitions, the correlations between medicine and emotion and the perils of questionable preventative surgery, scar tissue and invasive dental procedures. The doctor advocates for more holistic and alternative approaches rather than traditional methods; he urges readers to trust their own bodies and their intrinsic intelligence rather than the opinions of medical doctors, who may or may not have the best intentions... the author elaborates with real-life medical cases and cites a number of media references and varying opinions from the medical and naturalist communities to substantiate his claims. Thankfully, his frequently pejorative thesis on 21st-century health care is combined with sensible advice stressing the importance and widespread availability of choices (second opinions) for anyone eager to weigh their options before 'blindly trusting' in a health professional... Bigelsen contributes much-needed material to the ever-expanding canon of consumer-focused health literature."
--"Kirkus Reviews"
"This small book is a gem, containing much more than a critique of the current American medical system. The cure of inflammation and disease resides in simple, non-toxic approaches that release tension, reduce inflammation, and allow self-regulation to cure. For those who have ears to hear and eyes to see, "Doctors Are More Harmful Than G