The Great Assumption

The Great Assumption is:

The assumption by prescribers that a medicine or medical procedure will have zero to minimal impact on the patient's microbiome and if it does have an impact it will heal on its own.

The Great Assumption is now an unspoken cornerstone of modern medicine.

OOO

The Great Assumption was a valid placeholder in the process in the early days of modern medicine but research in the last 20 years indicates The Great Assumption is false and detrimental to our health. Yet no changes have been made in the exam room where patients meet their doctors. The Great Assumption is still part of the playbook in the exam room.

OOO

Flip The Great Assumption!

I'm not talking about not using medicine, I'm talking about including the microbiome as part of the whole human organism.

Research what impact a medicine has on the microbiome and account for that impact by taking steps to monitor and restore it to good health.

Unfortunately I don't see modern medicine moving in that direction. Today modern medicine equals Big Pharma and Big Pharma is interested in developing new drugs. Having to pay attention to and correct microbiome disruption caused by a medicine would cause significant disruption to drug development and administration.

OOO

The mentality that got us in the global warming crisis is the same mentality that gives us The Great Assumption: an unfounded belief in an infinite capacity to absorb and recover. In 2020 I think our collective microbiome looks like the Cuyahoga River in the 1960s.

OOO

Part of the problem is jurisdictional: doctors work on us, on our bodies. Our gut microbiome is in a pipe that runs through us, technically it isn't us although it is essential to good health.

For patients its the food and poop pipe. For doctors its a pill pipe.

What can we expect if The Great Assumption goes unchecked?