The Flexner report, a disturbing document

The Flexner Report is a famous document written in 1910 by Abraham Flexner. It brought about great changes in the training of doctors and the practice of medicine in the United States.. That paradigm, also based on a German model, quickly spread and was reproduced throughout practically the entire Western world.

It can be said that the Flexner report represented a before and after in medicine. One of the problematic aspects of his contribution is that it was not based on strictly independent research. Flexner was hired by John D. Rockefeller to evaluate how medicine was taught and practiced, and then formulate a course of action.

One of the transcendental effects of the Flexner report was the fact that since the modifications to which it gave rise, medicine as a whole became exclusively biological and pharmacological. A science exclusively focused on the body’s symptoms and oriented, also almost exclusively, to drug-based treatment.

Rockefeller and the pharmaceutical industry

To talk about the Flexner report, we also have to talk about John D. Rockefeller and the history of medicine. He did not always prevail in the paradigm of allopathic medicine in the world. This corresponds to the medical approach that mainly uses drugs to carry out the treatment of different diseases.

Before allopathic medicine became the almost sole paradigm in the West, not all doctors or all medical schools worked with chemists. What we call today “alternative medicines” were very common a century ago. At least half of the doctors used non-pharmacological therapies.

Meanwhile, John D. Rockefeller was by then the leading oil magnate in the United States. About 90% of the refineries were owned by him. Around the year 1900, scientists and technologists discovered petrochemicals. Besides, They found that from oil numerous products could be produced, like pharmaceutical drugs.

The Flexner Report

John D. Rockefeller through the Carnegie Illuminati Foundation, hired Abraham Flexner to visit medical schools and then make a report about its suitability.

Flexner’s research group visited 155 medical schools in 40 states and provinces in the United States and Canada. Field activities were carried out in a relatively short period of time for the possibilities of the time. Thus, between January 1909, when the first visits were made, and April 1910, when the last ones were made, all the information was collected.

The data obtained during the visits were:

The university population. The entrance requirements to the medical school. The teaching staff. The hospital and laboratory facilities. The educational services available. The financial resources available and their origin. The relationship of the school with a University and with the state educational system.

The result of that inquiry was the famous Flexner report, which consists of two parts. In the first, a historical and theoretical analysis of medical education is presented, in addition to establishing recommendations for organizing study plans. In the second, a description of each of the schools and the state analysis is made.

Based on this report, the AMA (American Medical Association) and the AAMCs (Association of American Medical Colleges) made radical changes in the teaching and practice of medicine, between 1910 and 1925. Medical schools and hospitals were required to adopt all of the recommendations contained therein. This change led to the number of medical schools going from 650 to 50. Students were reduced from 7,500 to 2,500. Among the recommendations was, for example, the elimination of women from the medical service, as well as people of color.

The Flexner report introduced three changes in medicine, which remain to this day. The first, the biological emphasis of this discipline; in other words, the separation of body and mind in treatments. The second, the departmentalization of medicine, that is, its division by specialties and subspecialties, as opposed to “comprehensive medicine.” And the third, the use of drugs as a basic treatment for practically any disease.

Criticism of the Flexner report

The Flexner report has been the subject of criticism since its emergence. Despite everything, it has established itself as a paradigm of medicine. The Human Race Foundation is one of the entities that has raised big questions about the validity of the famous report. The first of them has to do with its own origin.

The question could be expressed this way: Was it a coincidence that John D. Rockefeller financed the study that later gave rise to preferentially pharmacological treatments, when he was the oil magnate and had recently discovered a way to make medicine from that compound? It seems, at the very least, a reasonable question.

Another of the great critics of the Flexner report is Dr. Ghislaine Lanctot, author of the book The medical mafia. In an interview for Discovery HealthLanctot noted that: “The strategy consists, in short, of having chronic patients who have to consume all types of palliative products , that is, to treat only symptoms; medications to relieve pain, lower fever, reduce inflammation… but NEVER drugs that can solve an ailment. That’s not profitable”.

In closing, the resurgence of so-called “alternative medicines” could be a sign that many people do not fully trust allopathic or conventional medicine. Despite everything, all of its advances, which are many, cannot be overturned. It would be good for society to examine and debate these issues more openly.. We hope that this article is a contribution to this.