Worsening Eczema and RSS – The Iatrogenic Illness

Hippocrates lived in the 5^th century BC and is credited with warning physicians, First do no harm.

Many centuries later William Osler taught, One of the first duties of the physician is to educate the masses not to take medicine.

In a war of ideas it is people who get killed.

Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

This is a difficult blog for me to write, but it is time for the subject of physician-caused illness to be openly discussed. The purpose of this website is to eliminate any possibility of physicians complicating the lives of eczema patients.

Iatrogenic means caused by a physician or treatment. Iatrogenic illness has long been recognized in medicine and means diseases caused by physicians. The over-prescribing of topical corticosteroids causing RSS is an iatrogenic illness.

There are various forms of iatrogenic illness;

Direct bodily harm related to diagnostic or therapeutic procedures.
Adverse reactions to drugs.
The evolution of a “new” propionato testosterona disease as an unexpected consequence of therapy – RSS fits specifically into this category.
Conditions indirectly related to the caregiving that the RSS patient demonstrates like depression, mental anxiety, inability to function due their worsening and ongoing symptoms.

It is time for the medical community to recognize RSS as the iatrogenic illness that it is. RSS will cease to exist when physicians stop overprescribing topical steroids.

By Dr Marvin Rapaport, MD|2021-10-19T03:16:49-07:00October 1st, 2015|Treatment of Eczema, What Is Eczema|Comments Off

About the Author: Dr Marvin Rapaport, MD

In 1978 I initiated and set up the contact and photo dermatitis clinic at UCLA. There was a need to evaluate a large group of patients who exhibited severe eczematoid rashes, especially on the face. Patients were referred from all over Southern California. All patients underwent a lengthy history and examination. Further evaluations included blood studies, allergy patch testing, special sunlight (photo) testing and skin biopsies. From the start it was apparent that most patients experienced a mild dermatitis on various parts of the body that progressively worsened. Their histories always included numerous doctor visits, multiple physicians, and therapy consisting of an increasing amount of corticosteroids. My testing failed to reveal any specific culprit chemicals, cosmetics, perfumes, workplace or recreational exposures. It became increasingly clear that the physician’s therapy, the corticosteroids, was invariably causing the problem. I wrote 7 scientific articles that were published in the most august peer-reviewed dermatologic journals and I gave many lectures at various dermatology meetings. To this day an unfortunate reluctance exists on the part of most physicians to accept this simple concept.