>>>Oddly, I've never actually sat down to read the whole book. FWIW, there's some evidence that when they came over from Amsterdam in the early 1800's, the family name was Schreiber. That's actually interesting because we have another branch whose name is Safra, which is Hebrew for scribe, aka Schreiber.
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>You ought to meet my sister- amongst other gongs she got a Theology degree majoring in Old Testament and can yarn with old Rabbis in antique languages. ;-)
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>>>Yeah. Living here in an area with four medical schools, including the powerhouse that is Penn Medicine, we hear about lots of great stuff coming down the pike. And a friend is a researcher on hepatitis and tells us that there's a strong link between that (one of them anyway) and liver cancer.
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>Yep. Secondary liver cancer can come from lots of places but primary liver cancer has associations with prior inflammation and unless people have a particularly savvy physician, often it isn't detected until too late. There's a strong association with hemochromatosis that now has a genetic test so those at risk can avoid the inflammation and reduce their long-term risk. Price for the test has fallen dramatically, about $200 now. This is quite a good example of the impact of modern medicine these days and a reason why some people think that vaccination and other initiatives are lifestyle choices: the sense of risk is gone thanks to years of effort by academics and Big Pharma. Against this you have Witch Doctors and others making all sorts of outlandish claims.

The problem is that this the difference between witch doctors and modern doctors might be less than you think. Drugs might be tested in random trails, but still might be proven ineffective, highly addictive and have serious adverse problems like some anti-depressants has shown. It would not be the first time that drugs have been taken off the market years after they entered the market. Many thousands of people die each year because of over-medication or wrong usage.

Even worse the situation is for treatments. There are no randomized trail regulations for treatments (not that I know off). Physicians can use radiation on any type of cancer they like. And often it is not effective. Studies of effectiveness of a treatment, only shows years after they are introduced, and even if they are proven to be ineffective, any physician still can practice it.

This is not a rant against modern physicians, but a reality check. For the larger part we are still practicing medicine by trail and error. The only difference is that at least with modern medicine, it tries to be, and gives you the impression, to be self correcting. However, that does not mean that you're necessarily safer with a modern doctor as opposed to alternative medicine. In case of terminal patients, with both, you'll still die.

That being said, It would be foolish not to visit a specialist when having a serious problem. OTOH, we all know that some old kitchen tricks to minor comfort often work as well or better than some commercially available medication.

I have faith that modern medicine will cure cancer and other serious illnesses at some point in the future, but be are not there yet. Not by a long shot.