TY - JOUR T1 - Ivan Illich and medical nemesis JF - Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health JO - J Epidemiol Community Health SP - 927 LP - 927 DO - 10.1136/jech.57.12.927 VL - 57 IS - 12 AU - J P Bunker Y1 - 2003/12/01 UR - http://jech.bmj.com/content/57/12/927.abstract N2 - The appropriation of health In 1974 Richard Smith, the editor of the British Medical Journal, and I each attended lectures by Ivan Illich. Smith, then a medical student in Edinburgh, heard him claim that “the major threat to health in the world is modern medicine.” While a visiting professor in Boston that same year I heard him make the same claim. Smith recalls that listening to Illich was “the closest I ever came to a religious experience”.1 I had a somewhat different reaction, one tempered by the exchange between Illich and a medical student after his lecture. The student, raising his hand, said “but Dr. Illich, I just want to help sick people”, to which Illich replied with a sneer that “you’re no better than the Nazi doctors.” Smith’s reaction was to drop out of medical school (for three days). Mine was disgust.Looking back today I realise that … ER -