Surgeon Endorses TruthAboutETS

(TruthAboutETS Does Not Endorse Him)
Dr. Lyall Gorenstein (pictured), surgeon at New York’s Columbia University hospital, has reviewed the TruthAboutETS site. His response was -
“I enjoyed your site. I think you provide meaningful service to patients.”

Dr. Gorenstein says he is seeking approval from Columbia’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) to study the effects of sympathectomy on cardiac and exercise function. According to him, all previous studies have been flawed.

This would seem to indicate that Dr. Gorenstein feels ETS is still experimental, but you would not know that from his actions, at least pre-operatively. He performs ETS surgery regularly using both the cutting and clamping methods. According to one of his recent patients, Kim Garafolo, his pre-op warnings are minimal at best. 

Right after her August 2005 surgery, Ms. Garafolo began having problems, including severe pain, compensatory hyperhidrosis, and what she describes as being “detached” from her own feelings and emotions. She went back to Dr. Gorenstein to request that the clamps be removed, and he refused. Instead, he suggested that he only remove the clamps on one side to “see if the symptoms disappear”. Ms. Garafolo said -
"Dr. Gorenstein wants to do research on me like a monkey”.

Devastated, she sought help from ETS surgeon Dr. Cliff Connery, who also refused. According to Ms. Garafolo, during her office visit, Dr. Connery was most interested in gathering information about how well his website was working, and was openly concerned that other ETS sites were loading faster than his own.

Finally, in Novemeber 2005, Kim Garafolo traveled from her home in New Jersey to Southern California where Dr. Rafael Reisfeld performed surgery to remove the clamps from both sides. She has yet to see improvement, but is trying to remain hopeful.

It is in the nature of nerves, in general, that when one cuts the nerve leading to a body part, afterwards that body part does not function the same as it used to. Given that, it seems reasonable to predict that ETS surgery would change the function of all the body parts that have nerve function interrupted, at least until some well-designed study proves otherwise. In this author’s view, nerve damage is “dangerous until proven safe”.

Dr. Gorenstein evidently has the opposite view, that stopping nerve function to a body part is “safe until proven dangerous”. TruthAboutETS has documented many changes in cardiovascular function supported by published literature, and they can be found here. Nevertheless, Dr. Gorenstein’s website states -

"There is no evidence that ETS surgery has any negative impact on cardiac function, or the ability to reach preoperative peak work loads" Dr. Lyall Gorenstein

This is a carefully crafted statement, intended to mislead. The reader is left with the impression that ETS has been studied properly and found safe, at least with regard to heart function.  How would the reader know that Dr. Gorenstein himself thinks all the previous studies are junk?

-songboy1234

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