Angelina Jolie had her ovaries removed recently, to counter a possible 50 per cent chance of getting cancer in that part of her body. A few years ago she had had her breasts removed for the same reason. Sooner than later she may have more of her organs removed, and possibly replaced by artificial ones!

Not surprising if you believe these doctors, who could be called cancerologists. There is a 50 per cent chance of any human being contracting any disease. Does that warrant getting our organs removed to remain safe from cancer? If it is that easy, a lot more people will be coughing up money to get their organs removed. I remember my student-days when we used to advise parents to have their children’s tonsils, even appendix, removed lest they cause problems. Now we think that was foolish. Science has advanced by leaps and bounds.

With the latest science many conclusions could be drawn that seem to be true today.

The future is not there. It is yet to be born. The past is dead. The human body is not a machine put together by joining organs. It is a bundle of energy and a colony of 129 trillion human cells, each of which can have an independent existence in isolation. We also are home to ten times that number of germ cells at a ratio of 1:10. The human body works as one whole and not in bits and pieces.

Healing has to be Whole Person Healing (WPH). This is now scientifically accepted by the IOM in the U.S., thanks to Professor Rustum Roy’s efforts. Organs cannot be treated in isolation. In a dynamic system, prediction is impossible unless we know the total initial state of the organism. Writing in the British Medical Journal, Professor W.J. Firth, the physicist, shows how foolish it is for doctors to predict the unpredictable future of their patients. (BMJ 1991; 303: 1565)

Pray, how could anyone advise a patient to have her organs removed for fear of getting cancer there with 50:50 chances? That said, I must hasten to add that this is very sensible medical business. Cancer is a $1.72-trillion industry and growing by leaps and bounds.

The drugs are expensive and are not being tested properly. We have been able to conquer cancer. Money seems to be the only driving force in this business.

Scientists and rationalists condemn our poor astrologers for seeking to predict human future. I agree with them there. But the same people do not condemn this kind of quackery? Why are there such double standards? In fact, the latter is more dangerous as it is done in the name of “Science”.

What is science? I was sure Dolly would die a premature death due to old age diseases as she was created from her mother’s cell.

That happened. Eric Drexler, a young PhD from MIT, started a company, called, if I remember right, Furutistic Inc. He claimed to produce custom-built human beings without mother and father (self-replicating nanobots). He collected billions of dollars from venture capitalists.

His own teacher, the Nobel Laureate Richard Smalley, had to warn the world this is an impossibility. The company closed down, declaring Chapter 11! This is how one makes money through science.

All that is fine with our thinkers, but they are allergic to astrologers. Weather predictions do not come true correctly. Edward Lorenz then had a new hypothesis of the “Butterfly Effect”. In the human body which is non-linear and holistic things happen due to butterfly effect every minute. No one, not even the best scientist, can predict the human future using the present science.

Poor Angelina Jolie, she has been taken for a ride. At this rate what will be left of her body? I wonder how this business thrives in today’s world where the media should keep a watch. On the contrary, the media are helping them by advertising their work. Look at the news of Angelina’s ovaries. They make headline news all over the world. How her removed ovaries are making so much sense to the lay reader?

(Professor Hegde is a Padma Bhushan Awardee 2010, a cardiologist and former Vice-Chancellor of Manipal University. drbmhegde@gmail.com )