The Flexner Report, A Disturbing Document

The Flexner Report is a famous document written in 1910 by Abraham Flexner. It marked great changes in the training of physicians and in the practice of medicine in the United States. This paradigm, also based on a German model, quickly spread and was reproduced in 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 a strictly independent investigation. Flexner was hired by John D. Rockefeller to evaluate how medicine was taught and practiced, and then to formulate a line to follow.

One of the momentous effects of the Flexner report was the fact that since the changes it brought about, medicine as a whole has become exclusively biological  and pharmacological. A science exclusively focused on the symptoms of the body 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. The paradigm of allopathic medicine did not always prevail 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 unique paradigm in the West, not all doctors and not all medical schools worked with chemists. What we now call “alternative medicines” a century ago were very common. At least half of the doctors used non-drug 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 1900, scientists and technologists discovered petrochemicals. In addition, they found that many products could be made from oil , such as pharmaceutical drugs.

The Flexner Report

John D. Rockefeller , through the Carnegie Illuminati Foundation, hired Abraham Flexner to visit medical schools and then report on his suitability.

The result of that inquiry was the famous Flexner report. From this, the AMA ( American Medical Association ) and the AAMC ( Association of American Medical Colleges ) made radical changes in the teaching and practice of medicine, between 1910 and 1925.

Medical schools and hospitals had to adopt all the recommendations in the Flexner report. This change led to the number of medical schools increasing 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 of the 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 the treatments. The second, the departmentalization of medicine, that is, its division by specialties and subspecialties, as opposed to “integral medicine.” And the third, the use of drugs as a basic treatment for practically any disease.

Criticisms of the Flexner report

The Flexner report has come under fire since its inception. 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 phrased this way: was it a coincidence that John D. Rockefeller funded the study that later gave rise to preferential pharmacological treatments, when he was the oil magnate and recently the way to make medicines from that compound? It seems, at least, a reasonable question.

Another major critic of the Flexner report is Dr. Ghislaine Lanctot, author of the book The Medical Mafia . In an interview for Discovery Salud , Lanctot pointed out that: “ The strategy consists, in short, in having chronically ill patients who have to consume all kinds of palliative products , that is, to treat only symptoms; medicines to relieve pain, lower fever, reduce inflammation … but NEVER drugs that can solve an ailment. That is not profitable ”.

The resurgence of so-called “alternative medicines” could be a sign that many people do not fully trust allopathic or conventional medicine. In spite of everything, neither can all his advances, which are many, can be ruined. Society would do well to examine and discuss these issues more openly. We hope that this article is a contribution to this.