Dr. Robert J. Cihak, M.D.

Robert J. Cihak, M.D., was born in Yankton, South Dakota. He received his Bachelor's Degree from the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, where he studied under the philosopher Eric Voegelin. He earned an M.D. degree at Harvard Medical School (1962-66), and did postgraduate medical training and academic work as a surgical intern at Stanford Medical Center (1966-67), diagnostic radiology resident at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston (1967-70) and Assistant Professor of Radiology, U. New Mexico Medical School, Albuquerque, (1970-71). He then practiced diagnostic radiology in Aberdeen Washington until his retirement in 1994.

Dr. Cihak then became more deeply involved with public policy issues. He is a regular columnist for NewsMax.com and JewishWorldReview.com, and his articles have been published by the Washington Times, Orange County Register, The Seattle Times, WorldNetDaily.com, Sacramento Bee, Birmingham Alabama Post-Herald, Heritage Foundation, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Evergreen Freedom Foundation, The British Journal of Medicine, Western Journal of Medicine, and distributed to over 400 newspapers by the Scripps-Howard News Service. He's also served as Contributing Editor, Radiation, Science, and Health, Inc. (RSH), Worcester MA, Low Level Radiation Health Effects: Compiling the Data.

Dr. Cihak's affiliations include:
Board Member and Senior Fellow, Discovery Institute, Seattle WA,
Past President, 2000-2001, Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), Tucson AZ. Board Member, Doctors for Disaster Preparedness, Tucson AZ. Academic Advisor and Founding Board Member, Evergreen Freedom Foundation, Olympia, WA. Founding National Advisory Board Member, Eric Voegelin Institute for American Renaissance Studies, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge Louisiana. Member, Philadelphia Society

Archives

New types of medicines need new regulatory approaches

Robert J. Cihak and Richard Dolinar
August 6, 2009
As physicians, we are excited by new medical advances undreamed of only a few decades ago. Scientists are now creating advanced and truly individualized medicines that work with a person’s unique set of bodily components, such as DNA. Many of these new medicines – “biologic” drugs – are much more complicated than previous generations of medicines. Biologics are large, complex molecules, produced by genetic engineering techniques and manufactured by living cells. The everyday drugs that we are all familiar with, such as aspirin, are small in molecular weight and made by chemical reactions. Mixing the same chemicals in the same way always gives the same predictable outcome. In comparison, biologics are not the result of a chemical reaction but are “grown” in cells biologically …

Child Abuse Often Erroneously Diagnosed

Michael Arnold Glueck, M.D.
March 26, 2008
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com The loss of a child is one of life’s most painful experiences regardless of the cause, whether illness, accident, or injury. Parents say it’s almost unbearable to have a child die. But how about having your child forcibly removed from your home on suspicion of a crime you didn’t commit? Adding insult to injury, the accusations in question are based on an irrational medical diagnosis. This is a reality faced by far too many parents accused of child abuse. Yes, some parents do abuse their children. However, the medical profession and government officials often abuse the diagnosis of child abuse. Since our column, ” Healing Fractures, Broken Families: A Complication of an ‘Intrauterine Confinement Syndrome'” …

The Link Between Breast Cancer and Abortion

Robert Cihak & Michael Glueck
July 27, 2005
The news about the dangers of abortion is getting out, despite suppression by scientists and other vested interests — in particular, the relationship of abortion and subsequent breast cancer in the youngest women, those under age 18. They should be informed about the abortion-breast cancer link, especially if they become pregnant unexpectedly. Evidence for an abortion-breast cancer link continues to accumulate. In a recent exhaustive compilation and review of the evidence in the Summer 2005 issue of The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, Dr. Joel Brind, professor of Biology and Endocrinology at The City University of New York’s Baruch College, updates the evidence for and against the link. Some of the most striking evidence is for the increased risk of breast cancer in young …

Dangerous Delusions Corrode our Medical Services

Dr. Robert J. Cihak, M.D.
April 14, 2005
Our national flirtation with the illusory benefits of “free” national health insurance corrodes our debate about improving the quality of health care in the United States. Partly because of the allure of this delusion of free or single-payer national health insurance, we are slowly ceding our medical service system to government mismanagement at patient and taxpayer expense. The most dangerous delusion of all is that government-paid universal medical services are compassionate because they are supposedly “free” for everyone. This egalitarian theme sounds benevolent in theory, but is callous in practice. When government gains a monopoly on payment for medical services, health care personnel must give priority to bureaucratic over patient needs if they want to …

Two-Faced Medicare Enforcement

Dr. Robert J. Cihak, M.D.
January 20, 2005
Federal government prosecutors are sending doctors to prison for making mistakes in filing Medicare paperwork. At the same time, Medicare customer service representatives are apparently not even reprimanded for a 96 percent error rate in answering questions about how to handle physician billings. These representatives work at call centers operated by insurance carriers handling Medicare claims, and are tasked with providing clear and complete information about program billing requirements. However, according to an audit conducted by the Government Accountability Office (GAO, formerly the General Accounting Office) from September 2003 to June 2004, call center reps answered only 4 percent of policy-oriented questions correctly and completely. The call centers responded to more …

Kiss Patients’ Rights Goodbye?

Drs. Arnold Glueck and Robert Cihak
October 25, 2001
Civilization is a tricky affair. It depends on two opposite conditions. One is our ability to live and work together – especially under conditions of common danger and stress. The other is our ability to get some distance from each other. Physical space is good – we all need our personal bubbles. But even more important is a certain kind of legal space known as privacy. It might seem strange to be preaching privacy nowadays. But our subject here is more restricted. It’s medical privacy, i.e., your right to an honest relationship with a physician who’s neither obliged nor likely to divulge your secrets. Unless you’re totally honest with your physician, he or she can’t treat you properly. But the government is planning to destroy your right to medical …

Taking Action

Dr. Robert J. Cihak, M.D. and Michael Arnold Glueck, M.D.
September 21, 2001
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Government Prestige Masks Scientific Incompetence

Michael Arnold Glueck, M.D. and Dr. Robert J. Cihak, M.D.
May 25, 2001
If “to err is human,” is being a member of the Institute of Medicine’s, “Committee on the Quality of Health Care,” really divine? We don’t think so! Historian Daniel Boorstin once wrote of the “self-deceiving magic of prestige,” of using aura to cover inadequacy and other sins. The prestigious Institute of Medicine, part of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences, is the kind of congressionally-chartered organization to which the word “prestigious” automatically attaches. Perhaps a bit too automatically. Among the Institute’s latest products: Two splendid examples of the kind of inadequacy that not even prestige can hide. In June 1998, the Institute of Medicine established the “Committee on the Quality …

Shots in the Dark?

Dr. Robert J. Cihak, M.D. and Michael Arnold Glueck, M.D.
January 26, 2001
Should all children, even those with fragile and undeveloped immune systems, be subjected to multiple vaccine cocktails required in most states? According to the government and pharmaceutical companies the answer is an unqualified yes. Most states have some mandated vaccines for children, from hepatitis B to chickenpox, among other diseases. And the mainstream media has become the most vocal cheerleader for these government-mandated vaccines.

Doing the DNA dance

Robert J. Cihak and Michael Arnold Glueck
August 8, 2000
The uncoiling, unraveling and decoding of the DNA structure by the Humane Genome Project and the Celera Genomics Group is a magnificent scientific achievement and monumental medical milestone. But what does it really mean to the rest of us mortals? To begin with, it means much less than most people think, hope or worry. As diagnostic physicians, we've been trying to come up with a good analogy. Perhaps figuring out the sequence of the chemical elements in human DNA is like finding a huge pile of ancient document scraps in an unknown language and using computers to help sort out the correct order and position of the symbols. But even when sorted out, how could we figure out what the symbols mean? In DNA, scientists have figured out the ordering of the language symbols but don't know what most of the message means.

Anguishing Over Arsenic

Michael Arnold Glueck, M.D. and Dr. Robert J. Cihak, M.D.
September 1, 1998
Are we worrying too much about arsenic in the water? The anguish is making us more aggrieved than the actuality! In late March, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency asked for a 60-day extension of the effective date of the arsenic standard for drinking water released Jan. 22. Administrator Christine Todd Whitman announced that the EPA would seek “independent reviews of both the science behind the standard and of the estimates of the costs to communities of implementing the rule.” The rule would have reduced the acceptable level of arsenic in drinking water from 0.05 parts per million to 0.01 ppm. Predictably the green tree huggers responded with the usual pathological hyper-reflexes, and some chose to feign grand-mal seizures. The current American standard of 0.05 ppm was …

Single-Payer Is Not So Simple or Smart

Michael Arnold Glueck, M.D. and Dr. Robert J. Cihak, M.D.
September 1, 1998
Let’s start with three facts. First, patients are unhappy and growing unhappier with the nation’s medical care system. People want changes. Second, there are plenty of proposals out there. Third, this plenitude, indeed plethora of proposals demonstrates that none have the single right answer. In medical practice, multiple treatment approaches usually show that there is no single best treatment. But just because there may be no best treatment, some treatments can still be worse, or altogether wrong. And so it is with health-care policy. The search for a best solution has become so frustrating for the searchers that many large medical organizations are calling for a single-payer system. It seems simpler. It sounds simple. What could be wrong with that? We remember the …

Pariah de jour: The Pharmacy Industry

Michael Arnold Glueck, M.D. and Dr. Robert J. Cihak, M.D.
September 1, 1998
From Capitol Hill to the evening news, the pharmaceutical industry has been and is being pilloried as the “pariah de jour.” We have all seen the stories about the alleged greed of pharmaceutical companies. They range from accusations of the highest profits of any industry in the country to shortages of flu vaccines and other medications because there was no money to be made. And just this week the latest accusatory survey says that prescription costs have risen by more than 10 percent to an average of more than $45, with annual expenditures increasing by $21 billion last year. A recent Wall Street Journal article outlined how the drug industry is being blamed for everything from high-cost medication at home to the spread of AIDS in Africa. But we all know it’s easy to …

How Much Is Life Worth?

Michael Arnold Glueck, M.D. and Dr. Robert J. Cihak, M.D.
September 1, 1998
We all think we’re pretty valuable stuff. But what are we really worth? That all depends on whether you ask your mother, grandmother, siblings, your priest or rabbi, pharmacist, local chemist, philosopher, organ salesman, or the government and its endless agencies. With all the concern about health-care costs, a number of statistical czars in various branches of government have pegged what each of us is worth. At the low end, we’ve heard that a chemist might pay $1.19 for the chemicals that make up our body. On the other hand, we’ve already spent more than $300 million for the federal government’s effort to unravel the genetic code in one person’s DNA sample. Hillary Clinton apparently thought $100,000 was the magic number. That’s the limit she set for …

Medicare’s Right to Die?

Michael Arnold Glueck, M.D. and Dr. Robert J. Cihak, M.D.
September 1, 1998
Cars are just too expensive for seniors, proclaimed the politician when he unveiled his new plan. The bill passed, and so the government collected money from every worker’s paycheck to buy the cars, then paid the dealers about 20 percent of the market prices. Soon every senior had a car through the government program cleverly called “AutoCare.” But there were some problems. First, the showrooms of some dealers were cleaned out as seniors clamored for luxury cars for the government’s bargain-basement payments. Some dealers were run out of business because they had to sell so many pricey cars at a loss. It just got worse for everyone when cars became more expensive because seniors demanded better and more extravagant cars. When there was a shortage of cars, seniors …