The great fear is that the example of Prof. Weetman and the guidelines suggested by him (and recently in other quarters) will become establishment medicine, and doctors will not dare to make the correct diagnosis. To do so may be more than their career is worth. Only a handful of independent, and independent minded, practitioners, will be prepared to shoulder this risk on behalf of their patients. And their number diminishes steadily.
So one must ask - what is it all about? Recently we learned that osteopaths and chiropractors don't help us in the way we all believe; that omega-3 supplements are no help to our cardiovascular health and that we should cheerfully accept very large doses of statins; and now that hypothyroidism is actually quite rare and its diagnosis likely to be evidence of a doctor's incompetence in the face of pressure from his patients.
Dr. Barry Durrant-Peatfield is the author of The Great Thyroid Scandal and How to Survive It, and one of the UK's most beloved thyroid experts. He is retired after an unsuccessful battle against the conventionally run medical bureaucracy who object to use of natural thyroid drugs, treatment for hypoadrenalism, and who condemn physicians for using patient-oriented thyroid diagnosis and treatment methods.
