Thyroid Science 1(12):E1, 2006
How the False Beliefs of
Conventional
Clinical Thyroidology Came About
Dr. John C. Lowe, Editor-in-Chief
This month we published an especially important paper in Thyroid
Science, "The
linguistic etiologies of thyroxine-resistant hypothyroidism." The
paper addresses a grave mistake that doctors and researchers made in
developing the concepts of hypothyroidism and thyroid hormone therapy.
Something that makes the paper especially important is that the
discipline of the author, Eric Pritchard, is not medicine. Instead, he has
two other disciplines: theoretical mathematics and engineering.
Eric and I began writing to one another several months ago.
Immediately, something was clear to me: Here is a man whose brilliant mind
quickly grasped (from a single family experience with thyroid hormone
therapy) what most conventional doctors—including endocrinologists—do not
understand: (1) failed thyroid gland function is not the only
reason someone can need thyroid hormone therapy; (2) dysfunctions outside
the thyroid gland (for example, in the cells of other body tissues) can
cause many patients to direly need thyroid hormone therapy; and (3) the
therapy that enables most of these patients to recover their health is
T3—not T4.
As I pointed out in The
Metabolic Treatment of Fibromyalgia, [1,p.286]
conventional doctors tenaciously hold to converse—and false—beliefs: (1)
the only patients who need thyroid hormone therapy are those whose thyroid
glands fail to produce enough thyroid hormone; (2) all body tissues in all
patients always respond to thyroid hormone in a perfectly uniform and
normal way; and (3) the only thyroid hormone any patient ever needs to
take is T4.
These false beliefs of conventional doctors may have caused more human
suffering and dysfunction than any other blunder in the history of
medicine. The beliefs are a monstrous disservice to humanity. Knowing the
relevant history, Eric explains how this disservice came about. That, to
me, is perhaps the major contribution of Eric’s paper to the thyroidology
literature.
For those of you who most often read papers written by physicians, keep
this in mind: Eric comes from an intellectual discipline that, compared to
medicine, demands far greater intellectual precision, exactitude, and
accountability. Partly because of that, his style of written expression
requires some of us to stop here-and-there and think about what we just read.
The time, however, is well invested. Patients who already know the points
Eric makes will likely find his style an interesting variation of casting
the light of truth on the topic. However, conventional doctors, especially
endocrinologists, and researchers who open mindedly consider his arguments
may realize something else: that in his message is enlightenment that can
show the way to redemption for the moral debt they owe humanity—a debt
due for the incalculable suffering they have caused humans by imposing
T4-replacement on them.
Fundamental to the advancement of scientific knowledge is criticism and
debate. In this spirit, Eric, as we at Thyroid Science, invites
criticisms of the propositions that make up the arguments in his paper. We
have included his email address on the
abstract and
pdf version of his paper. If you would like for your criticism to be
published in Thyroid Science, send a copy to us at
Editor@ThyroidScience.com.
We will publish it along with Eric’s response, as long as it conforms to
our requirements for criticisms
and debate.
Reference
1. Lowe, J.C.:
The Metabolic Treatment of
Fibromyalgia. Boulder, McDowell Publishing
Company, 2000.
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About Publications in Thyroid Science
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