Quotes & Sayings About Medicine Drugs

I don't understand why asking people to eat a well-balanced vegetarian diet is considered drastic, while it is medically conservative to cut people open and put them on cholesterol lowering drugs for the rest of their lives. — Dean Ornish

Technology has a shadow side. It accounts for real progress in medicine, but has also hurt it in many ways, making it more impersonal, expensive and dangerous. The false belief that a safety net of sophisticated drugs and machines stretches below us, permitting risky or lazy lifestyle choices, has undermined our spirit of self-reliance. — Andrew Weil

Medicine and society have entered into a folie a deaux regarding medicine's importance in gigantic population ills. We believe that genetics and pills and enzymes bring us health. We wait for the dementia cure (the obesity cure, the diabetes cure) rather than changing our society to decrease incidence and severity. We slash social welfare programs and access to GPs and ignore the downstream effect this will have on future generations.
To reduce non-communicable disease, the actions we need to take are societal: make it easier for people to move and eat well, strengthen education, promote community participation and meaningful work. Our collective delusion is that we can have all the benefits such a society would bring without the structural supports necessary to bring it into being, that we can attain health by inventing and buying drugs.
It is hard to know which is the more utopian vision: magic pills or a society serious about prevention. — Karen Hitchcock

The name of medicine is thought to have been given from 'moderation', modus, that is, from a due proportion, which advises that things be done not to excess, but 'little by little', paulatim. For nature is pained by surfeit but rejoices in moderation. Whence also those who take drugs and antidotes constantly, or to the point of saturation, are sorely vexed, for every immoderation brings not health but danger. — Isidore Of Seville

New drugs and surgical techniques offer promise in the fight against cancer, Alzheimer's, tuberculosis, AIDS, and a host of other life-threatening diseases. Animal research has been, and continues to be, fundamental to advancements in medicine. — Daniel Akaka

Having great components is not enough, and yet we've been obsessed in medicine with components. We want the best drugs, the best technologies, the best specialists, but we don't think too much about how it all comes together. — Atul Gawande

The Nobel Prize is fine, but the drugs I've developed are rewards in themselves. — Gertrude B. Elion

People in the U.S. are more cranked up on pharmaceutical drugs than any other culture in the world today. I want people using safer medicine. And that means plant medicine. — Chris Kilham

We live in a drug culture! Drugs are everywhere and touted as the panacea for every ailment in our society. We have drugs for hyper children, drugs for depression - some of the most insidious drugs ever - , drugs for allergies, drugs for acne, drugs for emphysema and drugs for erectile disfunction - maybe the most useful of them all. And let's not forget the side effects of these wonder drugs! It's cliche to even talk about drug advertisements and the laundry list of side effects tacked onto the end of them, usually rattled off at warp speed by someone on loan from the local auction house. I've seen ads for acne medicines that include side effects that are potentially fatal! Seriously? "Hey! Buy our Acne-Magic Drug! You'll have crystal clear skin! In your coffin!" What the hell is wrong with us? — Steve Bivans

I don't drink any coffee or take any drugs and I don't smoke cigarettes and I don't eat sugar and I don't take any medicine at all. I eat a lot of fish, vegetables, and I stay away from starches. — Vincent Gallo

Much of the mystery surrounding drug action can be cleared up by recognizing that drugs affect only the rate at which biologic functions proceed; they do not change the basic nature of existing processes or create new functions. — Robert Berkow

Most recently, as the medical value of marijuana has been rediscovered, medicine has been searching for ways to "pharmaceuticalize" the plant - find a way to harness its easily accessible benefits in a patch or inhaler that doctors can prescribe, corporations patent, and governments regulate. Whenever possible, Paracelsus's lab-coated descendants have synthesized the active ingredients in plant drugs, allowing medicine to dispense with the plant itself - and any reminders of its pagan past. — Michael Pollan

The pursuit of curiosity about the basic facts of nature has proven, with few exceptions throughout the history of medical science, to be the route by which the successful drugs and devices of modern medicine were discovered. — Arthur Kornberg

My girl was mad and I loved her. Upon a night, she read my poetry; and kissing me madly she cried, 'You are a genius, my love!' To which I replied, 'My girl,' whispering, 'Every doctor in this land with a prescription pad is more of a genius than I. — Roman Payne

Pharmacogenomics holds great promise to shed scientific light on the often risky and costly process of drug development, and to provide greater confidence about the risks and benefits of drugs in specific populations. Pharmacogenomics is a new field, but we intend to do all we can to use it to promote the development of medicines. By providing practical guidance on how to turn the explosion of pharmacogenomic information into real evidence on new drugs, we are taking an important step toward that goal. — Mark McClellan

My father used to administer herbal medicine for free. But I can't give drugs for free. So the next best thing is to give it at as low a price as possible. — Kallam Anji Reddy

I have to laugh when people ask me if I do alternative, herbal, acupuncture or holistic medicine. 'No,' I reply. 'We do state-of-the-art medicine. In other words, we find the biochemical, nutritional and environmental causes and cures rather than blindly drugging everything. Sure, herbs are gentler, safer and more physiologic than drugs and holistic medicine attempts to incorporate many diverse modalities, etc. But there is no substitute for finding the underlying biochemical causes and cures. This is real medicine. This is where medicine should and would have been decades ago, if it had not been abducted by the pharmaceutical industry. — Sherry A. Rogers

The truth of life is that almost all that we achieve through pain is the best medicine for us, as most drugs are bitter — Sunday Adelaja

Once you've produced the scientific data that's necessary to make a drug into a medicine, you've gone a long way towards mainstreaming the acceptance of these drugs as having beneficial properties. And then the step to legalization is not that far behind that. — Rick Doblin

Strive to preserve your health; and in this you will better succeed in proportion as you keep clear of the physicians, for their drugs are a kind of alchemy concerning which there are no fewer books than there are medicines. — Leonardo Da Vinci

Ultimately the body will rebel. Even if it can be temporarily pacified with the help of drugs, cigarettes or medicine, it usually has the last word because it is quicker to see through self-deception than the mind. We may ignore or deride the messages of the body, but its rebellion demands to be heeded because its language is the authentic expression of our true selves and of the strength of our vitality. — Alice Miller

Medicine is not a science; it is empiricism founded on a network of blunders. — Emmet Densmore

I am diagnosed with not having enough insanely-addictive drugs coursing through my body. — Sarah Silverman

When conventional medicine fails, when we must confront pain and death, of course we are open to other prospects for hope.
And, after all, some illnesses are psychogenic. Many can be at least ameliorated by a positive cast of mind. Placebos are dummy drugs, often sugar pills. Drug companies routinely compare the effectiveness of their drugs against placebos given to patients with the same disease who had no way to tell the difference between the drug and the placebo. Placebos can be astonishingly effective, especially for colds, anxiety, depression, pain, and symptoms that are plausibly generated by the mind. Conceivably, endorphins -the small brain proteins with morphine-like effects - can be elicited by belief. A placebo works only if the patient believes it's an effective medicine. Within strict limits, hope, it seems, can be transformed into biochemistry. — Carl Sagan

Contemporary medical technology is not an advancement in medicine- it indicates the failure of Caucasian medical science and is a sign of ignorance. Technology cannot replace the human ability to diagnose disease by looking, touching and smelling to perform treatments without drugs. — Llaila Afrika

Here we will see that pharmaceutical companies spend tens of billions of pounds every year trying to change the treatment decisions of doctors: in fact, they spend twice as much on marketing and advertising as they do on the research and development of new drugs. Since we all want doctors to prescribe medicine based on evidence, and evidence is universal, there is only one possible reason for such huge spends: to distort evidence-based practice. — Ben Goldacre

Let's ask why it is that we pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, and your medicine can be doubled tomorrow, and there's nothing that the government can do to stop it. — Bernie Sanders

Bear in mind that since medications do not fix anything, they allow the underlying problem to continue uncorrected and actually accelerate. Meanwhile, new symptoms and new seemingly unrelated diseases are the inevitable consequence of this biochemical faux pas. Furthermore, drug side effects are the leading cause of death. NSAIDs as an example of only one group of medications, are fatally toxic to thousands of people each year by damaging joints, lungs, kidneys, eyes, hearts, and intestines. And they are covered by insurance.
You and your doctor have been screwed into believing every symptom is a deficiency of some drug or surgery. You've been led to believe you have no control, when in truth you're the one who must take control. Unfortunately, the modus operandi in medicine is to find a drug to turn off the damaged part that is producing symptoms. — Sherry A. Rogers

People who foster dependence on illicit drugs such as heroin are regarded among the most unscrupulous pariahs of modern civilisation. In contrast, pushers of licit drugs tend to be viewed as altruistically motivated purveyors of social good. — John Braithwaite

Where there were once several competing approaches to medicine, there is now only one that matters to most hospitals, insurers, and the vast majority of the public. One that has been shaped to a great degree by the successful development of potent cures that followed the discovery of sulfa drugs. Aspiring caregivers today are chosen as much (or more) for their scientific abilities, their talent for mastering these manifold technological and pharmaceutical advances as for their interpersonal skills. A century ago most physicians were careful, conservative observers who provided comfort to patients and their families. Today they act: They prescribe, they treat, they cure. They routinely perform what were once considered miracles. The result, in the view of some, has been a shift in the profession from caregiver to technician. The powerful new drugs changed how care was given as well as who gave it. — Thomas Hager

[ ... ] The problems I've discussed are not limited to psychiatry, although they reach their most florid form there. Similar conflicts of interest and biases exist in virtually every field of medicine, particularly those that rely heavily on drugs or devices. It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.
(Drug Companies & Doctors: A Story of Corruption, Jan 15 2009) — Marcia Angell

Before you treat a man with a condition, know that not all cures can heal all people. For the chemistry that works on one patient may not work for the next, because even medicine has its own conditions. — Suzy Kassem

People tend to think of breakthroughs in medicine as a new drug, a laser, or a high-tech surgical procedure. They often have a hard time believing that the simple choices that we make in our lifestyle. What we eat, how we respond to stress, whether or not we smoke cigarettes, how much exercise we get, and the quality of our relationships and support can be as powerful as drugs and surgery. And they often are. — Dean Ornish

When you hear someone use the word 'meds' instead of the word 'medicine,' chances are they're no stranger to massive doses of mind-altering psychotropic drugs. Back out of the room slowly. — Amy Sedaris

And if you like socialized medicine, you will love this government bureaucracy under [then-Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee] Al Gore that will actually cost seniors who get $500 a year in prescription drugs right now - it will end up costing seniors more money and take away control from those seniors. — J. D. Hayworth

What is the difference between a Doctor of Medicine and a Doctor of Theology? One prescribes drugs, while the other might as well be on drugs. — Pat Condell

It's important that public funds be spent in research directions that are pushing market frontiers rather than working in existing areas. This means funding research not only on drugs but also on areas like life-style changes, even if the profit potential is lower for Big Pharma as you cannot sell that change as you can sell a medicine. — Mariana Mazzucato

Our food industry ignores health and our health industry ignores food. Studies have shown that diet is the most effective medicine. Studies have also shown that prescription drugs are terrible for your body. The majority of people seem to have no knowledge of the things that make humans healthy, and many people also show a huge lack of interest in maintaining their health. — Joseph P. Kauffman

A physician is one who pours drugs of which he knows little into a body of which he knows less. — Voltaire

The 'drugs or surgery only approach that modern medicine uses to treat today's diseases is archaic. — Julian Whitaker

Medicine is not merely a science but an art. The character of the physician may act more powerfully upon the patient than the drugs employed. — Paracelsus

Disease is the biggest money maker in our economy. — John H. Tobe

Use vitamins in place of drugs. This takes some moxie to do, for we have been taught to be consumers of medicine. We have been taught that anything cheap and safe cannot possibly be effective. — Andrew Saul

It was as though the whole world was thrown back six or seven hundred years without having the organizations those ancient peoples had." He paused, breathing heavily. "Of course, there were many survivors who understood small skills. Some of them would repair small engines, but they couldn't manufacture them. They couldn't refine fuels. Fortunately a good many doctors who had practiced in small towns and in the country survived. They had their medical books, but they could no longer get the drugs they needed. Anyway, medicine survived after a fashion. Then gradually little patterns of order began to appear and another Bureaucracy came into being. — Hugh MacLennan

I don't believe that weed is a drug. I believe its herbal medicine. I'll smoke that occasionally and I definitely back marijuana but anything harder than that, I just say no to and I encourage kids to say no to hard drugs. — Christofer Drew

Archives of Internal Medicine revealed that postmenopausal women who were put on statin drugs to lower their cholesterol had a nearly 48 percent increased risk of developing diabetes compared to those who weren't given the drug. — David Perlmutter

I am not against all forms of high-tech medicine. Drugs and surgeries have a secure place in the treatment of serious health conditions. But modern American medicine treats almost every health condition as if it were an emergency. — Andrew Weil

Preventive medicine isn't part of a physician's everyday routine, which is spent dispensing drugs and performing surgery. — Deepak Chopra

In statecraft, as in medicine, words are sometimes the most powerful drugs we can use. The power of propaganda should never be discounted, — Ashwin Sanghi

If they're beautiful I don't much mind if they're not true. It's asking a great deal that things should appeal to your reason as well as to your sense of the aesthetic. I wanted Betty to become a Roman Catholic, I should have liked to see her converted in a crown of paper flowers, but she's hopelessly Protestant. Besides, religion is a matter of temperament; you will believe anything if you have the religious turn of mind, and if you haven't it doesn't matter what beliefs were instilled into you, you will grow out of them. Perhaps religion is the best school of morality. It is like one of those drugs you gentlemen use in medicine which carries another in solution: it is of no efficacy in itself, but enables the other to be absorbed. You take your morality because it is combined with religion; you lose the religion and the morality stays behind. A man is more likely to be a good man if he has learned goodness through the love of God than through a perusal of Herbert Spencer." This — William Somerset Maugham

Let us be the ones who say we do not accept that a child dies every three seconds simply because he does not have the drugs you and I have. Let us be the ones to say we are not satisfied that your place of birth determines your right for life. Let us be outraged, let us be loud, let us be bold. — Brad Pitt

Even if conventional medicine tells you that your condition is incurable or that your only option is to live a life dependent on drugs with troublesome side effects, there is hope for improving or reversing your condition. — Leon Chaitow

By characterizing the use of illegal drugs as quasi-legal, state-sanctioned, Saturday afternoon fun, legalizers destabilize the societal norm that drug use is dangerous. They undercut the goals of stopping the initiation of drug use to prevent addiction ... Children entering drug abuse treatment routinely report that they heard that 'pot is medicine' and, therefore, believed it to be good for them. — Andrea Barthwell

Love and intimacy are at the root of what makes us sick and what makes us well, what causes sadness and what brings happiness, what makes us suffer and what leads to healing. ... I am not aware of any other factor in medicine - not diet, not smoking, not exercise, not stress, not genetics, not drugs, not surgery - that has a greater impact on our quality of life, incidence of illness, and premature death from all causes. — Brian L. Weiss

I think I don't want to use drugs or medicine, so nothing. The only way is to go on stage and to hope. — Andrea Bocelli

Philosophy, like medicine, has plenty of drugs, few good remedies, and hardly any specific cures. — Nicolas Chamfort

Substances that are injurious to the well are equally (or more so) injurious to the sick. — Herbert M. Shelton

Food is better medicine than drugs — Patrick Holford

[I]t seems to me that a lot of the stranger ideas people have about medicine derive from an emotional struggle with the very notion of a pharmaceutical industry. Whatever our political leanings, we all feel nervous about profit taking any role in the caring professions, but that feeling has nowhere to go. Big pharma is evil; I would agree with that premise. But because people don't understand exactly how big pharma is evil, their anger gets diverted away from valid criticisms - its role in distorting data, for example, or withholding lifesaving AIDS drugs from the developing world - and channeled into infantile fantasies. "Big pharma is evil," goes the line of reasoning; "therefore homeopathy works and the MMR vaccine causes autism." This is probably not helpful. — Ben Goldacre

When none of those seemed to cure her, she moved on to modern medicine: a fertility specialist, who recommended drugs to induce ovulation and daily hormone injections that made her sob over a missed green light, a cookie dropped to the floor, bow-tied pigtails on little girls. The — Sarah McCoy

How much does it cost to treat leprosy? One $3 dose of antibiotic will cure a mild case; a $20 regimen of three antibiotics will cure a more severe case. The World Health Organization even provides the drugs free,
but India's health care infrastructure is not good enough to identify the afflicted and get them the
medicine they need.

So, more than 100,000 people in India are horribly disfigured by a disease that costs $3 to cure.
That is what it means to have a per capita GDP of $2,900. — Charles Wheelan

Medicine is my life, but literature is my mistress, and mysteries and poetry are my drugs of choice. — John A. Vanek

Was the government to prescribe us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now. - Thomas Jefferson — Thomas Jefferson

Health is Wealth — Ronnie Plant

So here's the situation confronting the drug firms: The drugs cost more to make, but they can't charge more for them. What do they do? Increasingly, the U.S. market is driving them toward drugs aimed at the diseases of richer, older Americans and away from antimicrobials, vaccines, and the like. — Donald Kennedy

Today we have big, crude instruments guided by intelligent surgeons, and we have little, stupid molecules of drugs that get dumped into the body, diffuse around and interfere with things as best they can. At present, medicine is unable to heal anything. — K. Eric Drexler