Such scare tactics as goudrea describes are quite common. My wife, when she was in the hospital in Chicago, was told constantly "you know why you feel this way - it's because you didn't take a blood transfusion." She knew that she felt that way because of her low hemoglobin count. However, within 2 weeks from her hospital visit, her blood count was almost normal. The treatment? 40,000-unit shots of procrit. (I think she had 4 altogether). Her total length of stay? 3 weeks, 1 week of which really wasn't necessary. And that was with 2 back-to-back liver surgeries.

On another note, the "doctor knows best" mentality is present at all levels. Family practitioners / General practitioners (at least here in the US anyway) don't do any form of holistic evaluation - they treat the symptoms (you have depression? take this pill), rather than the cause (oh, medicine x causes depression. why don't we find something different?). Personal research is generally discouraged.

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Douglas Phillips