Smear merchants lie through their teeth about people like me who want
to help others so their bosses can stay in power to help themselves.
Partisan bickering will not solve our problems. We need outside-the-box
ideas that help liberals, conservatives, and everyone else get more of what
they want. Requires pixie dust? Impossible? No. Read an example of how
we could make government affordable without penalizing anyone.

Kevin Pezzi, MD

The Singing Surgeon™
I'm part Native American and revere natural health,
so should I also call myself a Medicine Man, too? :-)

Iconoclastic views on economics, politics, technology, science, and life

I'm a PBS mind in an MTV World

Disagree with something I wrote? So do I! Read more

“To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.”

— Elbert Hubbard, American editor, publisher, and writer (1856–1915)

Trivia: He and his wife, Alice Moore Hubbard, the noted feminist and writer, died aboard the RMS Lusitania, which was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine on May 7, 1915, when they were heading to Europe to cover the war and interview Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany.

If you disagree with something I wrote, feel free to challenge it. Some of my viewpoints are the antithesis (exact opposite) of what they once were. That isn't flip-flopping; that is changing opinions with scant evidence to support them into convictions with a firmer foundation of facts.

My political philosophy is an amalgamation of libertarian, conservative, and liberal principles. My opinions have changed so significantly that my conservative friends might be horrified by how I strongly believe that liberals are correct on certain issues. I've previously written about some of them, but to make this more fun, I will present others as challenges in which I offer $100,000 to the first person who can refute the logic I used in forming that opinion. Please note that due to my limited time and difficulty using my hands after I broke my neck, I cannot quickly update my previously published opinions. However, now that I am balancing the promptings of head and heart, I strongly disagree with many opinions I expressed in my writings.

I like finding people who make me think, not necessarily those who agree with me. Genius Robert Heinlein said, “I never learned from a man who agreed with me.” If you can educate me, I'm all ears.

“Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.”
— Albert Einstein

“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”
— Albert Einstein

“The ultimate ignorance is the rejection of something you know nothing about and refuse to investigate.”
— Dr. Wayne Dyer

“If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking.”
— General George Patton

“Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.”
— Oliver Wendell Holmes

“A lot of people risk their lives in a brief act of heroism, which is kind of cool, but Jill has what I call slow heroism. She is risking her professional life on something that her own calculations show may not work for a thousand years—may not ever. So I like to support people that are risking their lives.”
— ex-Microsoft billionaire brainiac Nathan Myhrvold speaking about Jill Tarter, who inspired the character played by Jodie Foster in the movie Contact. It takes a brilliant person to see that others who go against the grain of conventional wisdom may be sages although lesser minds often ridicule their ideas.

“I am not young enough to know everything.”
— Oscar Wilde

“You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.”
— Winston Churchill

“Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.”
— Euripides, Greek tragic dramatist (484 BC - 406 BC)

“It is socially unacceptable to be right too early.”
— Robert Heinlein

“I'd rather stand alone on the truth than with millions on a lie.”

“The most distinctive mark of a cultured mind is the ability to take another's point of view; to put one's self in another's place, and see life and its problems from a point of view different from one's own. To be willing to test a new idea; to be able to live on the edge of difference in all matters intellectually; to examine without heat the burning question of the day; to have imaginative sympathy, openness and flexibility of mind, steadiness and poise of feeling, cool calmness of judgment, is to have culture.”
— Arthur H. R. Fairchild

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
— Theodore Roosevelt

“It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.”
— Abraham Lincoln

This reminds me of something stressed by one of my psychology professors, who said that society imposes rigid boundaries for what behavior is acceptable, and applies tremendous pressure trying to force people to conform to the behavioral expectations. Some of the most brilliant and productive outside-the-box thinkers led unconventional lives. One of the side effects of forcing people to think inside the box is that by lopping off outside-the-box behavior, potentially great outside-the-box ideas are lost, too.

“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it.”
— Edward R. Murrow, American journalist (1908-1965)

“You will not do incredible things without an incredible dream.”
— John Eliot

NOTE: Several family members were brutally slaughtered recently, so I will take a break from writing. Their deaths erased my affinity for writing about politics or the economy, thus I'll later limit myself to health and brainpower in addition to completing my book on rapidly overcoming racism and bigotry. BTW, the two men who murdered my father are still on the lam; I am offering up to $100,000 for information leading to their arrest and conviction.

My information is backed by scientific research

Media Matters lied when they said I claimed “to be responsible for . . . schemes such as a 'magic bullet' for cancer.” I don't do cancer research and never claimed that I invented a “magic bullet” cancer cure. While other doctors are out golfing or boating, I spend my time reading various books or journals. The editor of one of those journals excitedly published an article and editorial on something that researchers found to be amazingly effective. This substance may not be a “magic bullet,” but it very well could be an important stepping-stone to it. In the years since I first discussed this, additional research has shown that this drug does indeed cause a certain type of cancer to regress, even though that cancer is characteristically highly resistant to treatment. Years before I knew of this advance, my mother died—not of cancer, as you might have guessed, but from the treatment for it. This experience prompted me to spend more time studying how people can avoid cancer.

The potential for cancer is in our genes, but for every switch that turns cancer on, there's a switch to turn it off. In layman's terms, those “off switches” are sometimes referred to as “magic bullets” that contrast their selective effects with the brutal nonselective side effects of typical chemotherapeutic agents. When I find exciting new information about cancer or other health topics, I pass that information along to my readers. To see how little most doctors know about preventing cancer, ask your doctor what steps you can take to minimize your cancer risk. Then read my tips, and see who knows more.

Every bit of my information is backed by research conducted by credible scientists and published in reputable journals. Admittedly, some of the research I write about may sound implausible to people without much scientific background. For example, contact allergies may help ward off certain types of cancer. That may sound really hokey, but researchers discussing it have a plausible scientific explanation for that statistical association. Skeptical? Read the article: Association between cancer and contact allergy: a linkage study. Then read Allergies: their role in cancer prevention, which extensively reviewed the scientific literature on cancer and allergies, or this summary of it: Miseries Of Allergies Just May Help Prevent Some Cancers, Study Finds. Also see More Evidence That Allergies May Help in Fighting Brain Tumors, or if you've had your morning coffee, Prediagnostic Plasma IgE Levels and Risk of Adult Glioma in Four Prospective Cohort Studies.

Want more? How about Allergies Linked To Lower Risk Of Brain Cancer, or Allergies Lower Risk of Low And High-Grade Glioma, Study Finds. That study, Assessment of Type of Allergy and Antihistamine Use in the Development of Glioma, stated that “All types of allergies appear to be protective with reduced risk for those with more types of allergies.” Although this information seems offbeat, it is very intriguing and potentially useful to people with functioning brains.

Other examples:

Dirt may improve your mood and improve learning, possibly making you smarter.
Handling receipts (or faxes) printed on thermal paper can produce lasting behavioral problems, such as anxiety, hyperactivity, depressive behavior, and poorer emotional control.
Grape Seed Extract Kills Head and Neck Cancer Cells, Leaves Healthy Cells Unharmed based on Generation of reactive oxygen species by grape seed extract causes irreparable DNA damage leading to G2/M arrest and apoptosis selectively in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma cells
Grape-Seed Extract Kills Laboratory Leukemia Cells, Proving Value Of Natural Compounds

Therefore, what may sound wacky often makes perfect sense to educated people, while those lacking the brainpower or inclination to understand it may only scratch the surface before going berserk making wildly irresponsible allegations about my discussions of that research. Criticizing me for reporting or commenting on the research of reputable scientists is as stupid as shooting the messenger.

“The thing about smart people is that they seem like crazy people to dumb people.”
— Anonymous

“Small minds cannot comprehend big spirits. To be great you have to be willing to be mocked, hated, and misunderstood. Stay strong.”
— Robert Tew

“There's nothing more dangerous than a closed mind.”
— Anonymous

“The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don't know anything about.”
— Wayne Dyer

“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.”
— Søren Kierkegaard

Other than investigating a new source of nontoxic antifungal compounds, my medical research is focused almost entirely on developing new medical devices (generally electronic ones) for cardiologists, neurologists, and other doctors. I write about what cancer researchers discover, but that's it in terms of cancer.

Is there a need for a doctor such as myself to serve as a bridge between what researchers uncover and what you might learn from your doctor? You bet there is! Here is an example that illustrates how most doctors are behind the times. A UCLA study found that nearly all patients with high-grade bladder cancer do not receive guideline-recommended care. Of the 4545 bladder cancer patients included in the study, how many do you think received the comprehensive care recommended by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network and the American Urology Association?

90 percent? 75 percent? Half of them?

Not even close! Just ONE of those 4545 cancer patients received the recommended treatment! That is almost as unlikely as your lifetime risk for being struck by lightning, so it is downright pathetic when doctors who routinely treat cancer patients are so poor at giving them the most up-to-date care. When well over 99% of doctors fail to do that, it is obvious that information is not adequately filtering down to medical practitioners.

The situation is even worse for patients and the many people who dearly hope NOT to become patients. I usually spend at least a couple hours per day reading medical research. After doing that day in and day out for many years, 7 days per week, 365 days per year, I've accumulated a mountain of information pertaining to virtually every medical specialty, disease, condition, and more, such as how to improve mood, brainpower, and sexual pleasure. After practicing medicine in a variety of settings, from prestigious university hospitals to ones in the middle of nowhere, I know what treatments and information patients receive: almost always just the basics—the usual prescriptions and whatnot, but rarely the myriad facts that could take their health and happiness to the next level. In medicine, there is a tacit misconception that health is the absence of disease. That's fine for individuals who don't care how they feel or look, how mentally sharp and creative they are, or how quickly they age, but for most of us, who do care about such things, there is a real need to have that information filter down from researchers to doctors and everyone else.

The question is, how to best accomplish that goal? The obvious choice seemed to be books and similar content published on websites, but while everyone needs that info, few people are avid readers. If I published all the information I've amassed, it would total tens of thousands of pages: too much for virtually any doctor or nonprofessional to read and absorb.

So what's the solution? First, condense that info into an online database designed to make it easy for doctors and others to see how health and happiness can be improved by using research that rarely filters down to medical practitioners and their patients. However, I know that most people would rather surf to a website about sports or celebrities than learn how they can improve their bodies and minds, so I needed a way to not just get that information to people but to integrate it into their lives—transparently, with little or no effort on their part.

Making it simple and easy is key, because even topnotch doctors do not have enough time or mental capacity to memorize and implement all of that info.

You're probably wondering how I can transparently transfer information to people who could benefit from it. A few years from now, when you are using the invention I am now developing, you will see how easy I made it to help you become not just healthier and happier, but better looking, more energetic, smarter, more creative, more productive, and more satisfied in more ways than you likely can imagine.

In short, I am committed to improving your life and the lives of other Americans and people around the world. Unlike most dreamers, I am also a doer, and I will help people in some very surprising ways. Henry Ford said that if he “asked people what they wanted, they would have asked for a better horse.” Figuratively, I will not give you a better horse; I will give you something much better. Not only will it augment your health and happiness, but it will save you money and time, be fun to use, and become an indispensable part of your life. My device will also make it easy and highly enjoyable to help less fortunate people in the United States and elsewhere in the world.

Every great advance is met by skeptics who say it can't be done. By ridiculing good new ideas, they manifest their close-mindedness.

An advertising slogan created for Apple Computer in 1997 brilliantly explained how “the round pegs in the square holes, the ones who see things differently” who are “crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

Kevin Pezzi, MD

My information is backed by scientific research

Notes:

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