orangutans chew up medicinal plants and use them to treat wounds.

 in the 1830's, ketchup was sold as a medical treatment for upset stomach.

sphagnum moss is a better medical dressing than cotton. it is naturally antiseptic and is twice as absorptive.

antibiotics kill bacteria, not viruses.

if a brand-name medicine is exactly the same thing as the generic version, it will often work better if it costs more. why? because you expect it to.

placebos work even if you know they're placebos - in fact, some studies have concluded that they actually work better if you know.

because of a late-night deal struck by gop senators on behalf of pharmaceutical companies, americans pay roughly twice as much for medication as citizens of france, germany, greece, or the u.k.

the best cough suppressant is not an over-the-counter or prescription medication. it's honey.

the doctor who claimed that there was a link between the mmr vaccine and autism, andrew wakefield, faked his data and later lost his medical license. it turned out that he was taking money from lawyers that planned to sue the vaccine manufacturer.

a swine flu outbreak in the u.s. in 1976 killed 1 person. the vaccine to prevent it killed 25.

henrietta lacks died in 1951, but the tumor that killed her is still alive. it is immortal, takes over other cells like the alien monster from 'the thing', and is used to create cancer lab cultures. to date, scientists have grown more than 20 tons of biomass from it.

if you take any over-the counter medicine that includes acetaminophen and take more than the recommended dose - or take 2 products that have acetaminophen - you can permanently damage your liver.

in vienna during the 19th century, having your baby in a hospital was risky business. 1 in 5 babies, mothers, or both died. ignaz semmelweis decided to look into it, and found that hospital-based doctors often went from dissecting rotting bodies in the morgue to delivering babies. his suggestion: doctors should wash their hands in between. this wasn't a guess - he'd tried it, and mortality for his deliveries dropped to less than 1%.

washing your hands after touching future zombies is common sense, right? unfortunately, doctors don't like to be told what to do. as a result, even those who used to wash their hands stopped, and infant mortality tripled almost overnight. they also made sure that semmelweis lost his job and could never work in vienna again.

21 years later, pasteur discovered germs. soon after, most doctors started to wash their hands. but in the interim, 14,518 women and babies died in the vienna hospital for no reason but pride.

when someone in the movie flat-lines, they go right to the electrical paddles, and 'clear!' if you did that in real life, the patient would die. defibrillators are used to correct heart rhythm. cpr must be performed to restart a stopped heart.

dr. john brinkley of the u.s. replaced the testicles of 16,000 men with goat testicles. he believed that it would cure impotence. it didn't. he ran for governor of kansas (of course) twice and nearly won, and amassed a fortune of millions of dollars, but died penniless due to malpractice and wrongful death lawsuits.

contrary to movies and tv, in real life, only about 8% of people who receive cpr live for more than a month, and just 3% can go back to leading a normal life.

each year in the united states, approximately 195,000 people die because of medical errors, but just 15,000 to 19,000 medical malpractice suits are filed each year.

in 1898, heroin was marketed as a non-addictive cough syrup.

62% of bankruptcies in the united states are due to medical bills. 4 out of 5 of these people had health insurance, but either they got so sick that they lost their job (and their insurance with it), or could not afford to pay deductibles, co-payments and services that were not covered by their insurance.

example 1: marcie edmonds was billed us$83,046 for 2 scorpion sting anti-venom shots that would have cost us$200 in mexico. (americans are forbidden by law from purchasing medication in mexico by the medicare drug act.)

example 2: melissa torres was in an auto accident. the hospital originally billed her us$4850 for her emergency room visit. when the hospital found out that she received an insurance settlement, they upped the bill to us$20,211.

you know all of those side effects that they whip through at the end of drug commercials that you never pay attention to because how bad could they be if the drug's approved by the fda (a federal agency entirely made up of people paid for by and hoping to be employed by if they play their cards right big pharma)?

here's the cliff notes version of some popular ones:

• tamiflu (flu medication): hallucinations, psychosis, and/or impulsive behavior. as in, kids who have taken it have tried to dive out of the windows of moving vehicles.
• lipitor (cholesterol): memory loss. you know the flashy thing from 'men in black'? (yes, nerds, it's a neuralizer.) like that, set to 20 years or so.
• lariam (anti-malarial, used on tourists and soldiers): psychosis, suicidal tendencies, tendency to chase people with a big knife while singing 'i'm a little teapot'.
• accutane (anti-acne): all the symptoms of a brain tumor with none of the fun, plus nausea, dizziness, and loud whooshing noises (no kidding).
• mirapex/pramipexole (for parkinson's, bipolar disorder, restless leg syndrome, or cluster headaches): can cause you to become addicted to almost anything - gambling, drugs, sex, shopping... pretty much anything that anyone, anywhere has ever become addicted to.