"Trust The Experts": Insane Medical Practices Doctors Used to Swear By
Yesterday’s "standard of
care" is tomorrow’s horror story.
The history of medicine is a graveyard of once-trusted treatments.
Time and again, the medical establishment championed practices it would later abandon.
There were always dissenters warning about the dangers of such practices, but they were ignored, mocked, silenced, or otherwise sidelined—vindicated decades later, only after untold harm had already been done.
Keep that in mind the next time someone insists you “trust the experts.”
When you hear warnings about vaccines, statins, antibiotics, or other widely accepted treatments, remember: countless such treatments were once defended just as fiercely—until the dangers eventually became undeniable and the practice was quietly abandoned.
Here are some of history’s more notable examples:
Pharmacological Interventions
Mercury and Arsenic Treatments
Heroin as Cough Remedy
Radioactive Products
Diethylstilbestrol (DES)
Thalidomide
Surgical Interventions
Bloodletting
Lobotomy
Lifestyle Recommendations
Smoking
Sugar over Fat
Food Pyramid
Pharmacological Interventions
Mercury and Arsenic Treatments
Antiquity–20th century
For centuries, doctors used mercury—and later arsenic—to treat syphilis and other ailments.
Some doctors warned about their toxicity, but the treatments remained entrenched in medical practice until the mid-20th century (1950's). Today, they’re recognized as dangerous poisons that caused more harm than the diseases they were meant to cure.
Heroin as Cough Remedy
Late 19th–early 20th century
Following Bayer’s 1898 introduction of heroin as a ‘non-addictive morphine substitute,’ doctors commonly prescribed it as a cough suppressant.
A number of doctors quickly observed dependency and warned against long-term use, but their concerns were largely ignored. The drug remained in common use until widespread addiction and abuse—becoming increasingly evident by the 1920s—forced the medical community to abandon it.
Radium and Radioactive Tonics
Early 20th century
Radium was promoted as a “miracle cure” and added to tonics, toothpaste, and cosmetics. Some doctors and health advocates endorsed it as revitalizing, but users—including industrialist Eben Byers—suffered severe poisoning. By the 1930s, the mounting evidence forced both the public and medical community to abandon these products.
Diethylstilbestrol (DES)
1940s–1970s
DES, a synthetic estrogen, was commonly prescribed to pregnant women to prevent miscarriage.
By the 1950s, research indicated that DES was ineffective for this purpose, and some doctors warned it could cause cancer and birth defects in children. These warnings were ignored as pharmaceutical companies and obstetric authorities continued promoting the drug. Widespread cases of harm eventually forced the medical community to abandon DES by the late 1970s.
Thalidomide
1950s–1960s
Thalidomide was prescribed to pregnant women for morning sickness, resulting in severe birth defects and infant deaths.
Early warnings from FDA reviewer Frances Kelsey and several European physicians were ignored, drowned out by marketing pressure and widespread hype. By the early 1960s, the mounting evidence of harm led authorities to withdraw Thalidomide, and doctors ceased prescribing it.”
Surgical Interventions
Bloodletting
Antiquity–19th century
Bloodletting—a procedure to drain blood to restore the body’s balance—remained standard practice for centuries, until the late 1800s, when enough doctors realized it often did more harm than good.
Lobotomy
1930s–1950s
Lobotomy, a surgical procedure severing connections in the brain, was used to treat severe mental illness. It caused permanent disability, personality changes, and thousands of deaths before being abandoned.
Some neurologists and psychiatrists condemned it from the start as crude and harmful, but mainstream psychiatry embraced it in search of “solutions.” Opposition gained traction in the 1950s as mounting horror stories made the risks impossible to ignore.
Lifestyle Recommendations
Smoking
Early–mid 20th century
Doctors allowed their profession to be used to promote cigarettes as safe, even beneficial.
Research had linked smoking to cancer as early as the 1930s, but medical journals—often funded by tobacco companies—buried or ridiculed these findings. The medical establishment didn’t fully acknowledge the risks until the 1964 Surgeon General report, decades after doctors had already helped normalize smoking.
Sugar Over Fat
Mid–late 20th century
[ DYI Quick Comment: This attitude by Doctors remains today with HUGE emphasis on FAT and OMITS (never mentioned) sugar as the cause of heart disease and obesity. ]
Doctors promoted the idea that fat—not sugar—was the main cause of heart disease. The sugar industry heavily influenced this guidance by funding research and publications that downplayed sugar’s risks.
Those warning that sugar, not fat, was driving metabolic disease, were largely ignored until decades later.
Food Pyramid
1990s
The USDA food pyramid placed complex carbs—cereals, bread, pasta—at the base, labeling them as the “most important” foods to eat in large daily servings. This framework shaped the nutritional guidance doctors gave to patients.
Critics argued that the 1992 pyramid overemphasized refined carbs while underestimating fat and protein, but these warnings were sidelined to accommodate political pressure from the agriculture industry.
Conclusion
History shows the medical establishment has been catastrophically wrong time and again.
When today’s “experts” insist that vaccines and other pharmaceutical products are “safe and effective”, remember: such confidence once surrounded lobotomies, thalidomide, and smoking.
Blind trust in doctors didn’t ensure safety then—and it won’t ensure safety now.
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