I’ve received news from a devoted follower of the Sayadaw saying that, “...the sad news is that Sayadaw had very little chance to recover from this very bad pneumonia.” In your article, it is said, “Several organs (liver, kidney...) started to malfunction. Even though Sayadaw has no history of diabetes, the blood sugar level had risen considerably due to side effect of the medications.”

None of these was the reason he went to the hospital. It’s quite obvious that his death was iatrogenic (i.e., induced by a physician’s words or therapy).

In an email widely circulated on July 4, 2005, it was mentioned that Sayadaw had a brain CT scan done on June 28, 2005 which was about 3 months after surgery was done for the removal of his brain tumor Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM). It was mentioned in that email that result of the new scan was "very encouraging".  The report also explicitly stated that there was no specific evidence of residual or recurrent tumor.  Apparently, the midline shift was "essentially resolved".  There was no evidence of intracranial hemorrhage. The extra-axial collection subjacent to the craniotomy had decrease in size and it no longer contained air. Amazingly, this was happening without any treatment done for his brain tumor.

I’d venture to say that had the Sayadaw not gone for the unnecessary surgery and took all those  drugs, he would have lived longer and, more importantly, not suffered as much. In other words, the Buddhist devotees have unwittingly paid a large some of money in return for an earlier death and a greater suffering of the venerable. I did tell the devoted follower on May 28 that “I believe that all this “treatment” would only cause more suffering to Sayadaw and hasten his death.”

Two and a half months later, I was unfortunately proven correct.

I’m sorry if this sounds like ranting against Sayadaw’s faithful devotees who thought that they were helping him. They are certainly not entirely to be blamed. Modern medicine (allopathy), after all, has a very effective marketing strategy in place. In fact, that it is so well done that it is now like a religion of blind faith, whereby followers abide by whatever their allopathic doctors tell them even when they get worse after the “treatments”.

To avoid making the same mistake again, perhaps they should read a book by Ray Strand, MD, “Death by Prescription”, which reveals the shocking truth that modern medicine is the third leading cause of death—an estimate of 250,000 per year—in the US alone. The gist of the book and another book “What your doctor doesn’t know about nutritional medicine may be killing you” can be found here: http://www.truthpublishing.com/downloadables/LivewithDrRayStrand.zip

This conservative estimate was earlier drawn by Dr. Mercola from an article in the Journal of American Medical Association (Vol. 284, No 4 July 26, 2000, pp. 483-5). The writer, Dr. Barbara Starfield, however disagreed with Mercola. She considered doctors to be the number one cause of death because of their failure to inform their patients about the truth of health!

Perhaps even more shocking and very relevant here is this report:

Landmark study from British Medical Journal shows common surgical procedures to be worthless; surgeons perform countless unproven surgeries each year (please see: http://www.newstarget.com/001107.html).

If we can bring ourselves to understand such crucial knowledge properly, then perhaps we could say that Sayadaw did not die prematurely unnecessarily.

Here is something rather radical from a medical doctor:

"I no longer believe in Modern Medicine. I believe that despite all the super technology and elite bedside manner… the greatest danger to your health is the doctor who practices Modern Medicine. I believe that Modern Medicine’s treatments for disease are seldom effective, and that they’re often more dangerous than the disease they’re designed to treat. I believe more than 90% of Modern Medicine could disappear from the face of the earth---doctors, hospitals, drugs and equipment---and the effect on our health would be immediate & beneficial… Modern Medicine can’t survive without our faith, because Modern Medicine is neither an art nor a science. It’s a religion."

(Robert Mendelsohn MD [Confessions of a Medical Heretic] who is head of the Illinois State Medical Licensing Board, taught for 12 years at Northwestern University Medical School and served for 12 years as Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Preventative Medicine and Community Health at the Illinois State University. For more, read “Modern Medicine: A Snare and a Delusion” )

These may be strong words, but it has been shown over and over that “There definitely is a connection between the doctors’ sanctions and fewer deaths.” (Meir Adler, manager of Shamgar Funeral Parlour, Isreal)

In his book, Dr Mendelsohn also said:

"I started to collect statistics about doctor’s strikes. Whenever doctors stop working, the mortality rate always drops. There are no exceptions to that. In a doctor’s strike in Los Angeles, the mortality rate dropped 17%. During an 85 day strike in Israel, the mortality rate dropped 50%, which greatly concerned the morticians, who ran a study of their own and discovered that the last time the mortality rate dropped that low was 20 years previously during the time of the last doctor’s strike. So I decided that the recipe for good health was simply retiring all the doctors at full pay, on the condition that they not practice anymore."

That may sound funny, but it is not. It seems like there’s a price to pay if we are ignorant about health matters and believe that allopathy (modern medicine) is our best bet. Unfortunately, Sayadaw U Silananda and his faithful devotees had paid dearly for that.