Abraham Flexner Thesis

Abraham Flexner

Historians revere and are reviled by Abraham Flexner. He advocated educational reform to keep pace with European models, but he also clearly believed that any kind of medicine other than allopathic was inferior. Being revered by forward thinking educators made him the ideal front man for the moneyed chemical cartel in America. Historian Joseph Goulden describes the process this way:

“Flexner had the ideas, Rockefeller and Carnegie had the money, and their marriage was spectacular. The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research and the General Education Board showered money on tolerably respectable schools and on professors who expressed an interest in research.”

(The Money Givers by Joseph C. Goulden)

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Abraham Flexner

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Nearly all their subjects had to be taken at precisely the same time, and in the same way, and the number of drugs was such that students had no time to explore subjects out of independent interest. In his experience, there’s less intellectual freedom than any other professional education in the United States.

(The New Drug Story by Morris A. Bealle)

The U. S. Congress agreed there needed to be a standards keeper in American medicine, so it created the American Medical Association (AMA) to standardize drug education in all American medical schools.

(Abraham Flexner: A Flawed American Icon by Michael Nevins)

In Dissent in Medicine - Nine Doctors Speak Out, Alan Levine describes how hospitals and medical schools are funded:

• They provide the necessary funding for the establishment of hospital and medical school buildings - and “independent” research

2 were expected to have recurrences, but there was only 1 actual recurrence. The pharmaceutical companies claim the relative risk reduction is 50%, because one is 50% of 2. 2 would be statisically likely to have their breast cancer recur during the trial, but only 1 actually had a recurrence, so the risk is cut in half from a relative point of