Thank you so much for sharing this excellent article! Definitely one of the most interesting I've read in the past 3-5 years. Out of curiosity, how did you come across it? It appears to be a bit off the beaten path.

I haven't quite finished (about 40 or so more pages to go).
I liked many things in it, mostly the fact that the research group, although they started out with pretty much every possible wrong assumption about what they set out to do, when the tide turned, they had the integrity and decency to revise their attitude and come up with this amazing and well-researched article (and to admit to all of the above!)

I liked this particular quote and instantly thought it should be used as motto for the Iodine Supplementation Forum (I just felt it fits to a T):

"The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from old ones..."
John Maynard Keynes

Well, I skimmed the article over, will hopefully have an in-depth read later.

I don't care for the term "patient". Perhaps that's because I have assiduously avoided interaction with the medical community, I have seen far too many examples of "treatment" leading to early death and that includes those very near and dear to me. The few interactions that I have had with doctors, I have seen examples of the paternalism and lack of knowledge referenced in that article.

I understand though that there are those whose conditions are very complicated and that they may be intimidated by the learning process, scared, etc and that those folks might want to seek out the care of a medical professional.

I read an interesting article in discover magazine recently about medicines failings. In that article it is discussed that in order to become a "doctor"critical thinking skills are not only not cultivated but not desirable. The process of becoming a doctor involves memorization, thousands of anatomical terms, thousands of dis-ease states, etc. And of course, learning to cross-reference disease states with the drug of the day.

We are lucky though in that there are those MDs that have managed to keep their critical thinking skills intact and we have certainly benefited from their research.

Woe be to the average joe that goes to a doctor and expects that doctor to be able to make an informed decision as to treatment. The patient HAS to be educated, if he or she wants to have a decent quality of life, keep all body parts intact and/or live to a ripe old age.

I just met a thyroid-less woman the other day that had had her thyroid removed because of benign nodules. That's the standard, huh? Don't know how to fix it so remove it.

Back to the term "patient". I ain't no patient. I am an empowered individual that does not rely on others for "health" care. Nobody cares about me more than I do:)