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Dr Horvath,

 I found your 6-26 posting about hypoplastic villus atrophy a whole new
twist that was completely unfamiliar to me.  My question is, if one has
hypoplastic villus atrophy, would that individual respond to a gluten free
diet and the disease thus go undetected?  That was not addressed in your
posting.

Have any of you read the editorial in the New York Times (6-25-95) in the
Week in Review section, P. 16, entitled "Medical Fads: Bran, Midwives and
Leeches"?
Most interesting.

Having had a doctor specializing in Osteoporosis at U. of MN want to remove
a piece of my hip just so he could analyse the bone (for his research), and
having had a doctor give me an allergy shot - the third in a series - using
the whole undiluted serum, thus causing anaphlactic shock, having had a
doctor prescribe estrogen when another MD had said I should never take
estrogen again because of having  had symptoms of brain embolism from
estrogen years ago, - same symptoms returned, but I was aware and ceased
the medication - and it only took three months to recover(!), having had
one O B   say to another that it "looked like you beat her" when doing a
pelvic after childbirth - only to have my OB respond, tersely, "Shut Up!),
Having had a son who developed a hydroceal (SP?) the hour after hernia
surgery but the doctor swearing there was no connection, then moving to
another town where the pediatrician said  that hydroceal must be taken care
of immediately - and then saying it was the result of the previous surgery,
having a sister-in-law who was told at Mayo that the lump in her breast did
not need to be removed, and a year later she died of cancer of the liver
and a biopsy proved that the liver cancer was the same as the one in her
breast - I have a healthy skepticism of medical practice.  I think many on
this list could recount a similar litany.  We have put our doctors on
pillars and now are finding that there are cracks in some of the pillars,
while others are standing firm and doing fantastic work with heart and
sould involved in helping individuals and mankind in general.  No one
expects doctors to be super-human, but if  we accept the fact that they are
human and can err, then they must accept that, too.

I do not condemn medical practice, I simply think that patients must think
for themselves and not just turn their bodies over to a professional and
assume that all will be well.  Not fair to the doctor nor the patient.

How did all this result from a question about schizophrenia and CD??

Gayle