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babies but whether measures had been taken to improve maternal nutrition and health
    during pregnancy. Preventive strategies saved lives, and what we
    were doing was much less important.

    Introduction
    13
    I was flabbergasted. Exhaustion fueled my thoughts. If this is for naught, then what am I doing? Why am I kil ing myself, taking care of these babies, working thirty-six hours straight every third night, only to discover that it doesn’t lower the infant mortality rate?
    Now I understand the gift of that devastating information. It was
    another fertile seed planted in my mind of the desire to do more,
    which I would nurture over the years. As I did, it began leading me to find alternatives to the limited approach of our medical system.
    In the case of premature babies, for instance, scientists have discovered that putting the baby on the chest of the mother, skin to skin, and allowing them to bond, instead of putting the baby in an incubator, helps the baby to thrive. Premature babies who are exposed
    to the mother’s heartbeat and warmth have breathing that is better regulated, have fewer infections, gain weight more rapidly, and are discharged earlier.25
    Almost thirty years ago, the Government Accountability Office
    (then still called the General Accounting Office)[AU: Add this if that was the case then.] estimated that 70 percent of the procedures used by doctors were ineffective. Coronary artery bypass surgery, for instance, has been used to treat heart disease (the leading cause of death in the United States) since the 1970s. A 1982 study conservatively estimated that at least one-seventh of all such surgeries could have actual y been postponed or avoided altogether, which means that 25,000 operations per year back then were unnecessary.26 Life was clearly prolonged by the procedure in only 11 percent of all cases. More recent research has determined that the vast majority of these surgeries, compared to other medical treatments, provided no benefit.27
    It’s my opinion that the situation hasn’t changed since then. Today, in the United States, coronary artery bypass surgery is performed
    twice as often as it is in Canada and Australia and four times as often 14
    Introduction
    as it is in western Europe, despite similar population profiles.28 This means that American doctors are more apt to recommend this particular treatment, whereas their counterparts in other nations are less inclined to do so—and with good reason: recent studies continue to find no significant difference in the outcomes from surgery and other medical treatments in the vast majority of patients with heart disease.
    Lifestyle modification is a better way. Dean Ornish, a holistic
    physician and writer, demonstrated a highly effective approach to
    reversing coronary heart disease based on more than two decades of peer-reviewed research funded by the National Institutes of Health and several foundations. It consists of a major nutritional component to lower cholesterol, along with exercise, group support, and stress reduction.29 Many studies of chronic diseases show similar
    long-term benefits for patients than surgery.
    Several studies have highlighted the various dangers of modern
    medicine. These include the approval of unsafe drugs, the hazards
    of diagnostic technologies, the high incidence of unnecessary pro-
    cedures, and the inhumane and frequently stressful way patients
    are treated. These dangers were compiled and reported in an article called “Death by Medicine.”30 Certain extreme treatments, such as
    chemotherapy or a stay in a hospital’s intensive care unit, can actual-ly cause post-traumatic stress disorder in those who undergo them.
    What makes the situation so outrageous is that the healthcare in-
    dustry has traditional y encouraged the American public to be pas-
    sive consumers—to wait for developing technologies and new drugs
    rather than to accept the role they play in the expression of their own health and the origin