I don't trust doctors all that much as a profession. As individuals, I know a number of humble yet erudite and compassionate people who are doctors. I have also run across quite a few who think, and act, like they just came down off the mountain with Moses. I have had a relative injured by malpractice, and the physician guilty of it (he drank) shielded by his colleagues.

Also, until recently, medicine as practiced on women treated us as small men, to our detriment. Heart disease went undiagnosed because it doesn't present the same symptoms in women as it does in men, who were studied in great depth and detail. I actually had a GP tell me, in response to a question I had, that the female reproductive system is "very mysterious". Uh huh. Things that aren't studied usually are. Slowly, we are becoming worthy of study, and no longer routinely brushed off as "hysterical".

Therefore, when physicians tell me that something is absolutely safe, my usual reaction is to say, "That's nice. Prove it." Their reaction usually dictates whether I fire them or not.

I don't agree with Lindy's blanket statement, but I understand her attitude, which is basically one of skepticism in the face of medical certitude that everything they do is safe. It was summed up nicely by George Carlin, decades ago, when he observed that American women were taking part in a huge experiment by using birth control pills: "If, in 20 years, thousands of women have one leg shorter than the other..."