$2.5 billion spent, no alternative cures found
June 12, 2009 - 10:36am
BETHESDA, Md. - Ten years ago the government set out to test herbal and other alternative health remedies to find the ones that work. After spending $2.5 billion, the disappointing answer seems to be that almost none of them do. Echinacea for colds. Ginkgo biloba for memory. Glucosamine and chondroitin for arthritis. Black cohosh for menopausal hot flashes. Saw palmetto for prostate problems. Shark cartilage for cancer. All proved no better than dummy pills in big studies funded by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. The lone exception: ginger capsules may help chemotherapy nausea. As for therapies, acupuncture has been shown to help certain conditions, and yoga, massage, meditation and other relaxation methods may relieve symptoms like pain, anxiety and fatigue. Story continues below ↓advertisement | your ad here However, the government also is funding studies of purported energy fields, distance healing and other approaches that have little if any biological plausibility or scientific evidence.
Read it here. 
Critics find NHS's £12m spend on homeopathy hard to swallow
"Biologically implausible" is putting it mildly. There is absolutely no mechanism possible by which water could have a memory.
We'd better keep on feeding a multi-billion dollar big pharma industry with our drug purchases. Theyll discover something more significant than an alternative use for Tylenol at some point in the next 50 years, we can bet on it.
Well, I'm pretty sure no one has proven yet that Vitamin C can prevent colds, but indeed it can, just as chicken soup and sometimes, hot buttered rum :)
I also know that valerian and hops work very well for sleep and nervous problems, garlic and cayenne work to heat the body up and clear up chest congestion, and here's one: drinking tea and coffee can actually keep you awake! So can chewing on coca leaves, which will also give you a pleasant numbness in your mouth. There's a chemical in some poppies that, believe it or not, can make you feel pleasant, painless and sleepy. It can also stop your heart if you're not careful. There are numerous plants and herbs that can poison you and even kill you, apparently. Kooky! It is rumoured that there are even some plant and fungus species that can alter one's consciousness, producing hallucinations, but I find that one hard to believe. I guess much of this is just folkish superstition.
THIS is what we should be discussing:
About a million fatalites, and more adverse drug reactions, occur every year just in the USA due to legally prescribed medications. For a Canadian estimate, divide by ten.
http://www.healthe-livingnews.com/articles/death_by_medicine_part_1.html
Thanks for posting that article Tigana, it is well worth the read and backs up what many of us are saying.
These are the kind of community discussions that we need to be having, I think the difficulty in that may be that as long as you are well you may perceive the system as just fine and once you are ill and discover it is not all your energy goes into trying to get well.
The number of medical errors suggested by the article is shocking but not surprising to me. I have talked to numerous people who have experienced medical errors and have concluded that not only is the medication prescribed often dangerous but also the testing procedures may do harm.
As was pointed out in the article above these medications are tested on healthy individuals one at a time, the "testing" on sick patients happens when sick people receive those medications, reassuring isn't it? As for the testing, I assume that the studies on whether or not it is effective are also done on healthy people.
The last test I had done was a CT Scan, I refused to drink the contrast solution because my mother had had a severe reaction to it but I didn't understand that the scan itself was the equivalent of 100 chest x-rays. I went into the test with my pain levels at 6 or 7 on a pain scale of 10 and for three to four months afterwards the pain shot to 8 and 9, months that I spent horizontal with all my effort not to go and say "cut something out, I don't care what, just do something". I learned later that with this kind of testing there seems to be a problem with over-radiating small women and under-radiating large men, in one case a young woman with cancer died after testing. I felt burned, scorched inside, and I at the time was a very small woman.
These days I am often astonished to find that I feel well. Our bodies know that pain is a sign of something wrong and we are conditioned to believe that modern medicine has the most to offer us when we find ourselves in distress but if we learn to listen to our bodies and trust that our health is to a great deal dependent on our diet then it is possible to find another way through illness. If on the other hand you are convinced that fast food and tums are a wonderful combination and that modern medicine has all the answers you need you may find yourself with a shortened life span.
Ennir, I am glad you are well - you will help a lot of people. And there is so much work to do!
As for the government studying whether these treatments work and finding for the most part they don't, why does that not surprise me? lol
I would be interested to know how exactly these tests were conducted, did they simply give people the alternative with no other recommendations for changes to their life? If that is the case, which is much like people going in and purchasing a bottle of some herbal remedy, then I can see that they might not find benefits. Health does not come from a bottle regardless of where that bottle came from.The problem I have with this study is that it appears to me it was constructed to direct our attention in this way with the inevitable conclusion being alternative methods are ineffective.
Tigana, thank you. :) I tried to send you a message but you are not accepting them. :)
THIS is what we should be discussing:
About a million fatalites, and more adverse drug reactions, occur every year just in the USA due to legally prescribed medications. For a Canadian estimate, divide by ten.
http://www.healthe-livingnews.com/articles/death_by_medicine_part_1.html
Ummm, the referenced article doesn't say that almost a million deaths are due to legally prescribed medication: it's a mix of various medical mistakes mentioned in the article, as highlighted by the convenient chart at the beginning of the article:
ANNUAL PHYSICAL AND ECONOMIC COST OF MEDICAL INTERVENTION
Condition Deaths Cost Author
Adverse Drug Reactions 106,000 $12 billion Lazarou1 Suh49
Medical error 98,000 $2 billion IOM6
Bedsores 115,000 $55 billion Xakellis7 Barczak8
Infection 88,000 $5 billion Weinstein9 MMWR10
Malnutrition 108,800 -------- Nurses Coalition11
Outpatients 199,000 $77 billion Starfield12 Weingart112
Unnecessary Procedures 37,136 $122 billion HCUP3,13
Surgery-Related 32,000 $9 billion AHRQ85
TOTAL: 783,936 $282 billion
There were about 1 million deaths due to adverse drugs reactions over 10 years:
TEN-YEAR DEATH RATES FOR MEDICAL INTERVENTION
Condition 10-Year Deaths
Adverse Drug Reaction 1.06 million
Medical error 0.98 million
Bedsores 1.15 million
Nosocomial Infection 0.88 million
Malnutrition 1.09 million
Outpatients 1.99 million
Unnecessary Procedures 371,360
Surgery-related 320,000
TOTAL: 7,841,360 (7.8 million)
It would be a lot more helpful and relevant to accurately quote the article you're referring to. There are as many deaths over 10-years from malnutrition or bed sores as there are from adverse drug reactions (more actually), according to the article.
I'm not defending the current medical system - I'm just taking issue with the misrepresentation of the article. There are big problems to be sure. Drug companies have a vested interest in people using their products & I would be surprised if there aren't tens of thousands of prescriptions every year for pharmaceuticals that people don't really need since companies need to push their product in various ways (e.g. encouraging physicians to prescribe them). For profit healthcare also has an interest in people being hospitalized & using their services since they can earn revenue from such things.
And apparently, there are less than 10% as many medical error deaths in Canada (at least in 2004 there were) according to this story from the CBC, there were 24,000 medical error deaths in 2004:
http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2004/06/09/med_errors040609.html
It would be a lot more helpful and relevant to accurately quote the article you're referring to. There are as many deaths over 10-years from malnutrition or bed sores as there are from adverse drug reactions (more actually), according to the article.
The figures you cite are from the same article and still refer to iatrogenic causes. Shockingly, they are not talking about malnutrition due to poverty but, presumably, malnutrition via medical intervention.
How many deaths have there been from use of naturopathy, homeopathy or herbalism? Are there even any documented cases of such?
Well one wouldn't expect to see deaths directly related to homeopathy, as something with zero effect by definition can't have adverse effects. However, there are undoubtly many deaths related to people delaying real treatment while wasting time using fake treatment. And then there is the case of baby Gloria, whose parents were just a week or two ago convicted of manslaughter for refusing the baby any treatment except homeopathy (in other words refusing her any treatment at all). She died from complications arising from untreated eczema - something completely unheard of in places where medical care is available. They showed no remorse and hopefully will be locked up for a very long time so they can't harm their other child.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/06/05/homeopathy-kills/
Saying that homeopathy never killed anyone is like saying that no one has ever been run over by a car powered by homeopathic gasoline.
As for herbalism - it can directly kill, because unlike homeopathy, herbs actually has real effects both beneficial and adverse.
http://www.emedicine.com/EMERG/topic449.htm
http://www.mvprolapse.com/archive_herbs.html
I also had a friend who death was associated to a herbal weight loss product.
In reality, the big difference in numbers is because people who use herbalism and go to naturopaths or homeopaths is that they don't actually have anything wrong with them. They are young and healthy with minor complaints that will normally go away on their own. Any treatment, conventional or alternative is not going to kill them, but it is unlikely to do much good either.
People die in hospitals from adverse drug reactions because they are very ill and being given very powerful medications. The adverse reactions are generally a well known risk, but those are the risks you take when you are dying and they save far more than they don't. Homeopathy, herbalism and naturopathy wouldn't do shit for these patients.
Malnutrition deaths are troubling, but about 30% of sick patients entering a hospital are malnurished. Sick people have a tendency to burn through high rates of energy, plus they often don't want to eat much. Difficiencies are common. That people lose weight when they are sick should be no surprise. That doesn't mean that these deaths are unavoidable, more tests should be done, and higher calorie dense should be served etc. All of that will cost more money, money which we would much spend on extremely expensive sugar pills or other alternative cures that have repeatedly been found not to work. Naturopaths and homeopaths don't deal with malnurished patients that often, because they rarely deal with truly ill patients (or the poor for that matter, as it is feel good "medicine" for the elite).
Medical errors are more troubling. The ones I have seen have always occured during the chaotic scene of dealing with a crashing patient.
Interesting to see how quickly this thread turned away from the fact that billions have been spent on real trials that showed that almost every alternative medicine doesn't work at all. Truly shocking.
Interesting to see how quickly this thread turned away from the fact that billions have been spent on real trials that showed that almost every alternative medicine doesn't work at all. Truly shocking.
Real trials. As opposed to real tests? And we don't actually see a list of what was tested, so no, you can't claim "almost every alternative medicine." And the stats on iatrogenic deaths are directly relevant, as you have a highly self-interested body deriving its own guidelines for its own testing and then discounting the "unfortunate side effects" of their treatments as mere anomalies, somehow not part of the overall stats on medical outcomes. How trustworthy are their methods?
You can go to their website. I have been there many a time. And yes they have done real trials of the highest scientific quality of the most common alternative claims and found almost all of them to be a load of tosh.
No comparing adverse events from medicine that works with "medicine" at doesn't work is not directly relevant.
Like I said, automobiles using homeopathic gasoline have never killed pedestrians. Its a miracle! Cars using real gasoline can actually move and with that comes benefits and negatives. Cars using homeopathic gasoline have neither benefits or negatives.
It is the same as air travel. There are some risks involved, but people accept those risks because they feel that the benefits outweigh the risks. Sitting at home pretending that you are flying in your mind carries lower risks.
What a crock. Real pharmaceuticals have a very lengthy and thorough system of testing products for any adverse reactions long before they are tested on humans, then testing them on healthy humans for adverse reactions. If they are approved, they are then continually monitored for any adverse events.
Alternative medicines on the other hand have no system of testing for adverse events or tracking those adverse events. Furthermore, the alternative medicine industry (and it is a huge industry) have fought tooth and nail against any regulation that might protect their customers from frauds.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31088175/
"Lead in ginkgo pills. Arsenic in herbals. Bugs in a baby's colic and teething syrup. Toxic metals and parasites are part of nature, and all of these have been found in "natural" products and dietary supplements in recent years.......One quarter of supplements tested by an independent company over the last decade have had some sort of problem. Some contained contaminants. Others had contents that did not match label claims. Some had ingredients that exceeded safe limits. Some contained real drugs masquerading as natural supplements."
"There's at least 10 times more hoodia sold in this country than made in the world, so people are not getting hoodia," said Dr. Mehmet Oz,
Then there is this excellent article form the New England Journal of Medicine:
http://kitsrus.com/pdf/nejm_998.pdf
http://kitsrus.com/pdf/nejm_998.pdf
Link appears dead.
....
What a crock. Real pharmaceuticals have a very lengthy and thorough system of testing products for any adverse reactions long before they are tested on humans, then testing them on healthy humans for adverse reactions. If they are approved, they are then continually monitored for any adverse events.
......
ROTFLMAO
Let's begin with thalidomide, do you know it was never approved in the United States? In the United States it was the wives of doctors who took it, their husbands brought home the samples, but the general population was not exposed to it. How is it Canada was not aware of those problems? Canada approved it.
Let's begin with thalidomide, do you know it was never approved in the United States? In the United States it was the wives of doctors who took it, their husbands brought home the samples, but the general population was not exposed to it. How is it Canada was not aware of those problems? Canada approved it.
Yes, I am aware that Thalidomide was never approved in the US. Canada approved the drug prior to any adverse events being known. The drug had been tested on pregnant women, but not pregnant in their first trimester. The drug was held up in the US because a letter in the Lancet that some patients had a tingling sensation in their fingers. That was followed up by a letter in the Lancet by a Australian obstetrician who noted that some deformities in babies. At that point in time it was taken off the market everywhere. Because of this regulations on pharmaceuticals were made stronger and tracking better.
However, that makes little difference for alternative medications that face no regulations or tracking at all. Had this been an alternative medication the adverse events would have been many times harder to track, and, unlike this case where it was never approved by the FDA, it would have stayed on the market until the FDA could prove that it was dangerous.
Trevor, your thoughts on the safety of our medical watchdogs - Health Canada and the FDA - would change forever if you looked at the work of Dr. Shiv Chopra. His book, CORRUPT TO THE CORE, will open your eyes.
http://www.kospublishing.com/html/corrupt_to_the_core.html
So will the story of the death of Terence Young's daughter -
http://www.truemantuck.ca/articles.php?command=show&cID=47
And, without pointing any fingers, I'd like to note that some people may get paid to derail discussions of prescription drug dangers and leave pro-pharma comments on discussion boards.
Lilly Lies
http://www.ahrp.org/cms/content/view/417/70/
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aTLcF3zT1Pdo
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a6yFu_t9NyTY
I won't be responding to you in the future as I have better things to do with my time then engage with conspiracy nuts. It could be just as easily said that "some people may get paid to derail discussions of alternative medicines not working and leave anti-pharma comments on disscussion boards." Seeing as this was a discussion about alternative medicines being found to not work which was derailed by the likes of you who have actually not posted a single word about this thread's topic, that's actually fits much better.
How often do you see advertisements in newspapers, magazine, tv etc by "big pharma" trashing alternative medicines? Never (although you can find the opposite easily). How much financial support does big pharma give to those who spend their time trying to expose alternative medicine frauds? None. Did big pharma give James Randi a medal for continually exposing faith healers and homeopathy? Nope. Why is that? Because, although alternative meders think that they are sticking it to big pharma, the reality is that big pharma couldn't give a flying f. First of all big pharma owns a large percent of supplements, herbals and other alternative medicines and also owns a large chunk of the distribution of herbs and other ingredients used by independent sellers. Secondly, big pharma is more concerned with those who don't feel the need to take anything for everyday discomforts. They are not terrified of the group of people who complain about the world being over-prescribed with big pharma meds while they have a cabinet full of untested and unproven alternative medicines (many which are sold of big pharma themselves) which they take for any and every perceived malady. People always feeling that they must be taking something for any soreness or cough which would go away just as fast anyways - wow, big pharma should be afraid of that. If those people took nothing and realized that for minor ailments they recovered just as fast, that would be more concerning then those who give credit to a treatment each time their body healed itself. As the use of alternative medicines has increased significantly over the past 15 years so has the use of pharmaceuticals. Not only are more people using pharmaceuticals, but many of them are also taking "complementary" medications, and to top it all off, people who shouldn't be taking anything at are lining up for their daily dose of alternative woo. That is win-win for the profits of the large pharmaceutical companies. This is not new either. Many decades ago they realized that they could get well-nourished people to take large doses of vitamins and minerals which they would just piss out. Exceedingly cheap to make, gets people used to popping pills, no trials to go through and even if study after study showed that they were unnecessary for 99% of the population, it didn't matter. People WANTED to take them and many felt that the more the better. Then they moved and are continuing to move into the rest of the alternative medicine business. Are they upset when someone who needs medical treatment instead uses an alternative treatment that doesn't work? Hardly, it just means that the disease process advances further and results in more conventional treatment.
People who don't require evidence that a treatment works.
People who don't care if no trials have been done.
People who don't care that trials which have been done show no effect.
People who are willing to spend money on unproven and untested substances.
People who don't care if a product has proper quality controls are in place.
People who argue that any regulations would infringe on their medical freedom.
Yeah, those are the people big pharma goes to bed worrying about.
As for the rest of the crap you posted, it is meaningless. No one has argued against stronger regulations for pharmaceuticals, and for people to argue for stronger regulations for pharmaceuticals while at the same time defending alternative "medicines" which have no regulations, safety controls, or evidence for (if not evidence against) its claimed function is beyond hypocritical. As for Shiv Chopra, no I won't be reading his book. I have read enough of Shiv's opinions over the years on things like mumps, rubella and HPV to know enough to stay clear.
And, without pointing any fingers, I'd like to note that some people may get paid to derail discussions of prescription drug dangers and leave pro-pharma comments on discussion boards.
I could say without pointing any fingers, people get paid to discredit mainstream medicine in order to promote the multi-billion-dollar alternative medicine industry.
But discarding all of evidence-based medicine on the basis of the misdeeds of a few is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
One of your links speaks of the off-label use of Zyprexa for dementia in the elderly. Who exactly do you think determined this drug was ineffective and dangerous in this population?
I'm thinking it was probably the patients and families, then I am thinking the nurses and yes I know there are wonderful doctors who care and who would bring this information forward but how many cases are there of doctors trying to do just that and being censored?
How is that Harvard Medical University students gave Harvard an F for their lack of integrity? These students understood that their medical education was being shaped by Big Pharma.
Thanks for the excellent links Tigana. It gives me hope that we have a Member of Parliament who understands the issues.
I think we all need to wake up to the responsiblity for our own health, we need to investigate any medication for ourselves whether they be alternative or conventional.
I guess the evidence for me on "evidence-based" medicine is that the singlemost largest advances in community health have occurred through sanitation, clean water, and better nutrition. Not through pharmaceuticals, gamma knifes and expensive diagnostic equipment. Another recent advance occurring across the board is education about healthy living practices and preventive health techniques.
I question whether "evidence-based" medicine actually saves more lives than any other medical treatment system that has existed. And if it does, is it just for a life of continued ill health and dependency on medical support. Are we prolonging the lives of people who perhaps would be better off dying? "Evidence-based" medicine is extremely expensive to communities, as well. Why does it have to be so expensive? It's an industry, like the military. But is it really worth the money we're spending on it? I think these are questions we need to start asking ourselves as a community.
Ennir, thank you - and Jas too.
Here is the link for our MP who undertstands the issues - Terence Young, in Oakville.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_Young_(politician)
I remember where "drugs" come from - chemistry and botany, which is now called "alternative medicine". And nutrition, also, is smeared with the same "alternative" brush.
"First do no harm'... "Let your food be your medicine" ...even Sir William Osler said that the first duty of doctors was to educate patients not to take medicine.
I don't know much about homeopathy but it seems to have worked well for HM the Queen and Prince Philip.
http://www.darshem.org/sys-tmpl/homeopathy/
If I want to know the truth about pharma, I read Marcia Angell, physician and former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcia_Angell
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17244
if I want to learn about nutrition, I read Dr. Abram Hoffer's Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine or Dr. Andrew Saul's DoctorYourself and sites of their friends.
http://www.orthomed.org/jom/jom.html
http://www.orthomolecular.org/
http://www.doctoryourself.com/
http://www.alternativementalhealth.com
For a condemnation by bankers (!) of the antics of big pharma and new plans to milk the public for profit, read Vision 2020, a PriceWaterhouseCoopers pdf here -
http://www.pwc.com/extweb/pwcpublications.nsf/docid/91BF330647FFA4028525...
We should be asking why bovine growth hormone was approved by Health Canada at all and why HC are still - STILL - spending millions of your tax money to prosecute Dr. Shiv Chopra.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiv_Chopra
We should talk about Guillain-Barré syndrome and other illnesses caused/spread by vaccinations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillain-Barré_syndrome
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=327_1195303011 - AIDS: a little gift from Merck
We now know that benzos are addictive, and antidepressants' performance often ranks with that of placebos - when they don't cause dependency and permanent damage. We should talk about why we know more about what goes into our pet food than what we are feeding our children, our elderly - and ourselves. We should learn what to take to have a naturally healthy immune system. We should be asking why our government can't afford to give kids breakfast but can afford ritalin, chemical twin of amphetamine - and other chemical straitjackets -
http://www.cbc.ca/national/news/normal/
In Ontario alone $500M was earmarked for Merck's Gardasil - which has been associated with illness and death and contains aluminum -
http://www.doulton.ca/alzheimers.html
http://www.prwatch.org/node/6263/print
We should be asking why our elderly are being medicated at all. The dementias can be the result of poor nutrition - and respond to vitamin therapy.
http://www.orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v04n25.shtml
I'll watch for the community's responses with great interest.
sineed asks,
One of your links speaks of the off-label use of Zyprexa for dementia in the elderly. Who exactly do you think determined this drug was ineffective and dangerous in this population?
Eli Lilly themselves knew, and covered it up.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has info on whistleblowing re Lilly's Zyprexa here:
http://www.eff.org/cases/eli-lilly-zyprexa-litigation
Also check http://www.furiousseasons.com/archives/2007/11/atypical_nation_deadly_re...
All very good points and questions jas, thank you.
And Tigana more links and great questions, thank you.
I completely agree that we should let food be our medicine. I think though that we face challenges that Sir William Osler and his generation didn't face. Our food supply has been de-nutrified through our farming practices and the diets of many people are deficient in vital nutrients. It has also become highly processed with questionable additives and strangely astonishingly acceptable that food makes you feel sick and then you either drink the pink stuff or take a pill.
We are programmed to think of our digestion as some food/fuel tube and this begins very young. A friend was telling me that her granddaughter didn't like bananas and refused to eat them, no big deal they didn't force her to, so one day at day care a worker there decided she should have banana and forced her to eat it, within fifteen minutes her eyes were swelling shut. Stunning isn't it? I wonder if we arrive with an inate sense of what is good for us and what is not and whether we lose that sense because it is constantly over-ridden by the prevailing norms of what a healthy diet is.
Soy is an interesting product to look into to see how we are manipulated into eating something that may be dangerous for us. The estrogen levels of children who had been fed soy milk as infants were at puberty something like 13% above normal.
It seems to me that our industrialized food system and big pharma wash eachother's hands, one makes us sick and the other keeps us sick, meanwhile they profit to the tune of billions and billions and billions.
"Courage my friends, 'tis not too late to build a better world" - Tommy Douglas
Douglas-Caldwell Foundation
http://www.dcf.ca/
Fair-use Tommy Douglas poster
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tiganatoo/3082937229/sizes/l/
There are some actual studies being done on various herbs. And its good to know of any potential side effects as well.
Some have been found to be harmful (Rue) potentially cancer causeing if used wrong (comfry).
Most confirm that granny new what she was talking about. a useful site for research :
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez
type 12722128 in the search box
Just as there has been lead found in toys and catfood there are many unscrupulous companies out there. best to grow or gather
what you use. Black cumin seed is also a pretty blue garden flower commonly called "love in the mist" nigella
Nasal spray can cause loss of smell, FDA warns
The over-the-counter products contain zinc, an ingredient scientists say may damage nerves in the nose needed for smell. The other products affected by the Food and Drug Administration’s announcement are adult and kid-size Zicam Cold Remedy Nasal Swabs.
The FDA says about 130 consumers have reported a loss of smell after using Matrixx Initiatives’ Zicam products since 1999. Shares of the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based company plunged to a 52-week low after the FDA announcement, losing more than half their value.. . .
. . .The FDA said Zicam Cold Remedy was never formally approved because it is part of a small group of remedies that are not required to undergo federal review before launching. Known as homeopathic products, the formulations often contain herbs, minerals and flowers.
Snuckles, without Zinc you would not be able to smell anything.
From http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/13159.html -
THE ADVERSE EFFECTS OF ZINC DEFICIENCY, A review from the literature
by Tuula E. Tuormaa for FORESIGHT, the Association for the Promotion
of Preconceptual Care [first published in: Journal of Orthomolecular
Medicine, 10 (3 & 4): 149-164, (1995)]
http://web.archive.org/web/20011102124628/http://www.surreyweb.org.uk/fo...
Zinc is known to alter taste and smell and is thought to be a factor
in some cases of anorexia and bulimarexia. The observation is that a
zinc deficiency suppresses taste and smell and leads to loss of
appetite. The reason is that "zinc is essential for the taste
perception is because taste is mediated through a salivary
zinc-dependent polypeptide termed gustin, therefore low salivary zinc
levels invariably leads to a reduction of taste." Zinc deficiencies
are generally short-term, and symptoms can be quickly relieved by
restoring adequate zinc intake and absorption.
How many deaths have there been from use of naturopathy, homeopathy or herbalism? Are there even any documented cases of such?
Here's one
Here's 72 more.
Homeopathy, like a lot of alternative therapies, works via a phenomenon that increasingly bedevils pharmaceutical research and development: placebo effect, which used to reliably produce an improvement in 30% of clinical trial subjects. The interesting thing is that placebos seem to be getting more effective. Wired magazine has a pretty good piece on the subject:
http://www.wired.com/medtech/drugs/magazine/17-09/ff_placebo_effect?curr...
Here's one
Very good, M Spector. That only took you three months.
Here's 72 more.
Oh my god. The outrage. An HIV-positive person dying of AIDS. Someone with cancer -- dying from it! A person with depression committing suicide, because of homeopathy!
"When her cancer recurred, Diane tried homeopathic treatment. She was sold unapproved substances and a quack machine. After she died, her daughter sued the practitioner."
Suing a homeopath because her mother died of cancer. Did the daughter win? We don't know, because the link doesn't work.
"This study found that many breast cancer patients in Pakistan delayed medical treatment in favor of homeopathic remedies. "
What we won't mention is that many breast cancer patients' conditions can worsen also when seeking western medical treatment.
For every example here, you can find as many, or more, of people receiving western scientific medical treatment and also dying, or their conditions worsening. Probably as many examples, as well, of people not seeking any medical treatment and recovering or healing.
How do we know homeopathy is a crock? Simple; if any of that crap was in any way effective, the pharma companies would snap it up and patent it. Even those vultures know horseshit when they smell it.
It's pretty hard to take seriously a miracle cure that was somehow overlooked by Merck or Ely Lily.
Very good, M Spector. That only took you three months.
It was only reported a couple of days ago. Sorry if my precognitive abilities are faulty.
What we won't mention is that many breast cancer patients' conditions can worsen also when seeking western medical treatment.
So are we to take it that you do not recommend seeking "western" medical treatment for breast cancer?
BTW, I guess you're oblivious to the implicit orientalist slur inherent in labelling all science-based medicine as "western". Asian doctors and researchers can do science pretty well also.
Some of these "cures" aren't patentable.
ETA: The word cures is in quotes as it pertains to homeopathy. There are plenty of other alternative treatments that are valuable.
ETA: Just wanted to clarify, before I toddle off to bed, that I consider alternative treatment to be any treatment other than the most common or standard one. It's one of those phrases that means different things to different people.
Some of these "cures" aren't patentable.
And why is that? Is it because you actually have to have proof that a homeopathic treatment works before you can patent it?
No, it's because making up dilute concentrations of dandelions (or whatever) wouldn't be subject to patent. Actually, a specific dilution process might be, but dandelions themselves definitely not.
ETA: I was actually kidding about the dandelions but I just googled it and apparently they are used in homeopathy.
ETA: I was actually kidding about the dandelions but I just googled it and apparently they are used in homeopathy.
Yes, it's pretty hard to think of some outrageously unlikely remedy that the homeopaths haven't already thought of - and profited from.
If Bayer could patent aspirin, why couldn't they patent dandelions?
Why some alternative cures work: Placebos are getting more effective
LTJ, you stumbled on the same article I found and posted above. It's interesting, isn't it? To the pharmaceutical companies it's just an inconvenience, but it's really about that mind-body link we hear so much about, and how we could exploit it. Imagine people at some point being able to heal themselves using their own mind, instead of pharmaceuticals with a plethora of side-effects and price tags that eat up more and more of every country's health care budget.
More on the mind-body link: The nocebo effect
Thanks for posting that. Once you get to a certain age you've heard the story of a doctor telling a patient that they have X months or years to live, or they'll never walk again, only to be proved very wrong, far too many times. At this point, knowing what we know about nocebo effect, I wonder why they ever do it.
There were some good comments on the story, but the one by the guy who had worked on a dairy farm left me stunned. So much for the animals are just machines theory, which never worked for me anyway.
Why some alternative cures work: Placebos are getting more effective
That is a fascinating article, thanks for posting it.
I think there are a growing number of people who are discovering that intention, supported by wholesome choices, has the power to heal. As for homeopathy, I have used Arnica for muscle strain with success, perhaps that was the placebo effect but if so then how wonderful is that? lol
"but if so then how wonderful is that? "
Exactly, and people should think about the opposite of the placebo effect, and how that could play out in disease occurances.
An article on "intention healing":
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/09/the_lost_symbol_is_real--really_so_sayet.php
Oh, yes, I remember seeing this guy on a CBC News segment about Ronnie Hawkins a couple of years ago. Quantum holograms, eh? I think I saw one of those the night I shared two bottles of Sauvignon Blanc with my neighbour. I wasn't hungover the next day (although I was still gormless), so it must be real.
It's easy to laugh at that, but city officials in Aliso Viejo, California were so concerned in 2004 about the potentially dangerous properties of dihydrogen monoxide that they seriously debated banning foam cups when they learned it was used in their production. Very embarrassing. I do wonder sometimes whether the lack of basic scientific literacy people leave high school with is entirely innocent, given how much business depends on it.
Evidence suggestive of it being anything but accidental, from the US: http://thememoryhole.com/edu/school-mission.htm
"but if so then how wonderful is that? "
Exactly, and people should think about the opposite of the placebo effect, and how that could play out in disease occurances.
Hee. I have to admit to a bad thing here but heck it was a youthful thing. At one time I just hated going to school. I can't remember why though but I don't think that matters. Anyways I did get the occasional migraines so started 'ahem' faking migraines. Problem was that after I did that for a time, I'd fake and then end up with an actual real and painful migraine by the afternoon. Same thing happened when I moved to other fakes. Fake nausea end up with physical nausea. Fake cramps, end up with actual cramps. My faking was making me actually sick so I had to stop once I finally figured out that something more was going on then sheer coincidence. Which of course was a good thing. :) Made me pretty aware though of my thinking and how it could affect me physically if I wasn't careful.
Mind and body do have a link, and how you think can change how you feel - emotions have a chemical/hormonal component, that much is fact. However, you can't cure a cancer or any other serious ailment by thinking it away or meditation or water that has had herbs waved at them. That's just silly.
Why is that silly?
Sorry if my precognitive abilities are faulty.
I forgive you.
BTW, I guess you're oblivious to the implicit orientalist slur inherent in labelling all science-based medicine as "western". Asian doctors and researchers can do science pretty well also.
You're right, "western" is an outdated term to refer to white European-based society. It's lke calling Ontario and Quebec "central Canada" when they haven't been for quite some time. For a while, people were using the term "Northern" as in northern hemisphere cultural hegemony. I didn't really want to say European or Eurocentric, so I guess we could just say scientistic.
By the way, I believe my original question had been were there any deaths caused by use of homeopathy or other natural therapies.
Why is that silly?
Ye gawds. There isn't enough bandwidth to answer that question adequately.
Because it's daft, against all the laws of science and nature and just plain stupid? Because it's not possible? Because it doesn't actually work? Because there's no evidence that it ever has that isn't somebody's cousin's in-law's friend of a friend's cousin six times removed?
Will that do?
Homeopathy is harmless for minor ills that will resolve themselves. For major illnesses, like cancer, homeopathid treatment kills by keeping people from treatment that could either save them or buy them a little time.
ETA: Natural therapies... How about we look at Hulda Clark's alternative therapies?
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/09/requiem_for_a_quack.php
No, not for me. Your assertion seems to suggest that there are other ways of curing cancer. Last time I checked, there's no cure for cancer. It can be treated. How would you know that mind has no role to play in healing?
Chemotherapy and radiation therapy cure some types of cancer, others they don't, but can extend the amount of time a sufferer has. Unlike homeopathic or alternative treatments. Or "intention healing", otherwise known as "wishful thinking".
Another area I have wondered about is Chiropractors-some people swaear they do work but I have heard that many people get injuries which manifest a year or so after being treated.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8299991.stm
Two people have died and 19 others were taken to hospital after being overcome while in a sauna-like room at a spiritual retreat in Arizona.
Police said 64 people were inside a so-called "sweatbox" at the Angel Valley resort for up to two hours before many of them became ill....
The 70-acre retreat near the town of Sedona, about 115 miles (185km) north of Phoenix, offers holistic treatments and spiritual retreats in a natural setting, according to its website.
Reports said some of the sweatbox participants had paid up to $9,000 (£5,700) for their stay at the retreat.
The resort offers a wide range of treatments from massage to colon cleansing, healing carried out by harnessing the consciousness of a dolphin, or "vortex experiences", in which participants "experience our human energy system interacting with the earth".
Sitting in a sauna for two hours not only won't cure anything, it'll kill you - go figure.
...healing carried out by harnessing the consciousness of a dolphin
Now, that sounds like a promising therapy.
Maybe we should get the U.S. National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine to spend a couple of billion on researching it.
Colonics are a lovely bit of quackery, too.
http://www.ncahf.org/articles/c-d/colonic.html
http://www.oag.state.tx.us/oagnews/release.php?id=295
No more jokes, please.
"Physicians are approximately 9000 times more dangerous than guns"
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FKA/is_6_63/ai_78476942/
In every discussion about homeopathy or other forms of quackery, some defender of this nonsense always trots out these hoary old fake statistics about how dangerous scientific medicine is. You don't have to look far to see it's all smoke and mirrors, with no basis in fact.
The article linked to above talks about the "statistic from the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) that prescription drugs are killing 140,000 Americans a year." This figure is passed around the internet, from one pseudocience website to another, as if it were an actual statistic. The story gets embellished with each retelling, and the devoted followers of medical quackery everywhere lap it up and pass it on as gospel.
The "source" of this statistic, if one is ever given, is said to be an article in the JAMA entitled Adverse Drug Events in Hospitalized Patients. You can read the article HERE in .pdf format. Don't bother reading the whole article, though, because it doesn't support that fake statistic of 140,000. It merely states, by way of introduction to the article,
"In addition, ADEs [Adverse Drug Events] may account for up to 140,000 deaths annually in the United States" (my emphasis). Yup, that's it; that's all.
The article, published in January 1997 (almost 13 years ago), cites as authority for this "statistic" (by way of a footnote) one other JAMA article from 1977 (20 years earlier, and now 32 years old), entitled Drug-related deaths among medical inpatients. You can read that article in .pdf format HERE. But again, don't spend a lot of time on it. All it shows (in relation to the United States) is that in a sample of 13,842 hospital patients between 1971 and 1976, 17 died of drug-related causes - a rate of 1.2 per 1,000. Nowhere in that article does the statistic 140,000 appear.
So where did the authors of the 1997 article come up with 140,000 deaths by adverse drug events? If they used the 1.2 per thousand figure from the 1977 article they would have to be starting with a figure of over 116 million patients per year (× 1.2 ÷ 1,000 = ~140,000). I don't know how many hospital admissions there were in the US in 1996, but in 2006 there were fewer than 40 million [Source].
How reliable is that 140,000 statistic? It's bogus. 140,000 is greater than the number of deaths in the US from diabetes, pneumonia, and influenza combined - nine years ago. Source: Actual Causes of Death in the United States, 2000.
And just think of all those Americans who have no health insurance and can't afford medications. And then there are those with insurance and are denied access to drugs and life saving procedures anyway. In the USsA, doctors earn bonuses for saving money for health insurance bosses as well as shareholders. Whereas in countries like the UK under British Labour, doctors there are actually earning bonuses for making people well.
What's the difference between homeopathy and herbalism? I believe marijuana would fall under herbalism and I don't think there are many who question the health benefits of that particular plant.
What's the difference between homeopathy and herbalism?
It's like the difference between water with something in it, and water.
Really? So all those big pharmaceutical companies are racing around the world attempting to patent plants with medicinal qualities because they really don't have the best interests of their investors at heart? Huh.
FM, coffee and tea have done pretty well too.
Really? So all those big pharmaceutical companies are racing around the world attempting to patent plants with medicinal qualities because they really don't have the best interests of their investors at heart? Huh.
Not sure I made my point clearly. Herbalism may well have healing qualities. Homeopathy only has money-making qualities.
There's always Whatstheharm.net if you're interested in doing a little research.
Golly, did they get their information from this site?
No, thanks. I'll let you do it.
In every discussion about homeopathy or other forms of quackery, some defender of this nonsense always trots out these hoary old fake statistics about how dangerous scientific medicine is. You don't have to look far to see it's all smoke and mirrors, with no basis in fact.
M. Spector, are you giving us a recap on how to lie with statistics?
Drugs are dangerous - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_box_warning
When doctors are taught about drugs by pharma companies - sometimes by reps often who have no background in science -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XowhBPHSNQs&feature=related
the result is ignorance, and that can be fatal.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/adr/
DEATH BY MEDICINE by Gary Null, Carolyn Dean et al - PDF
http://www.webdc.com/pdfs/deathbymedicine.pdf
Chemo, not cancer, killed my mother, and meds disabled and killed other members of my family. And that situation is true of every person I know, and probably every person you know.Maybe cancer isn't what we have been taught.
http://www.cancerisafungus.com/
And the science research world has gone rotten.
http://sciencefactionnyc.blogspot.com/2009/05/fake-pharmaceutical-public...
EDIT: Actually it's been rotten for a long time.
M. Spector asks, "If Bayer could patent aspirin, why couldn't they patent dandelions?"
Actually, Bayer used to make and market heroin and aspirin. Now I suppose they or a subsidiary makes and markets methadone.
Here are some highlights of Bayer's achievements for humanity:
http://www.crocodyl.org/wiki/bayer_ag
Pharma doesn't take much interest in cheap plants like dandelion that grow freely; there's little money in them unless Monsanto can find an angle to patent them. Dandelion is not one of the herbs in Canada's traditional four-herb Native/Essiac cure for cancer, but other uses for it are discussed at the Rene Caisse site.
http://www.rene-caisse.net/maria-treben-herbs/dandelion-taraxacum-officinale-2.html
What's the difference between private US health care and homeopathy?
Answer: Homeopathy is afforable for the most part. The po' gotta try to be well all by themselves in the land of free market health care.
Fidel, what is your background in alternative medicine?
Well not much to tell you the truth. My only health care horror story is about the only real health issue I ever had. When I was a boy, I had an eye infection that wouldnt go away no matter how many eye drops my GP prescribed for me. My old ma was born in the UK, and for three years she kept insisting to the family physician that he recommend me to an eye specialist. My quack GP kept insisting that he try this and that and the other thing. Long story short, my quack GP finally acquiesced to my ma's request that I see a specialist. Dr Specialist was also from Ingerland and the land of socialized medicine, and Dr Specialist recognized my problem right away. I was cured brotha, oh I was cured for all time and havent been troubled with me viddy's ever since.
I think we lack a proper setup in Canada mainly because it's run by an old line party system and old boys' CMA clique. They advised our provincial governments back in the 80's or 90's as to how many doctors we'd be needing in future. They screwed up, and so did our neoliberal setup in Canada not work well in producing enough family physicians and specialists of all kinds. In a country like Cuba, education is free for all. They have more doctors per capita than any country in the hemisphere. But this is the nature and legacy of the new liberal capitalism started 30 years ago to transform this bastion of socialism into a free market experiment that has gone awry every step of the way as it has in other countries where tried.
Fidel, it sounds like you and Tommy Douglas had similar experiences!
Good thing the country and the medical system can be put right.
Not quite that bad. I think doctors then told Tommy his leg would have to be amputated if he couldnt pay the piper. He was lucky enough to find a compassionate doctor who cared more about medicine and the people he treated than money. I don't think every Canadian was as lucky as Tommy was before that. And I at least was able to see a GP for my eye condition. The drugs he gave me for my eye were ineffective but still covered by my dad's medical benefits from the unionized steel mill where he worked then. Which reminds me, Canada is one of the few rich countries without a national drug plan, or vision care, or a national dental officer. There is much room for improvement for Canada's so-called socialized medicine. Tommy had a vision for universal health care, and our federal NDP want to make it happen.
This is a good start: http://www.ndp.ca/press/conservatives-must-stop-lobbying-for-friends-in-...
This is not so good: http://www.vitalitymagazine.com/oct09_helkefeat
Ken Boessenkool, a church chum of Harper's, is a really successful Canadian lobbyist. He took food from Ontarians' mouths when he brought in Merck's Gardasil - a vaccine that failed in Texas. McGuinty, a Bilderberg alum, and Sandra Pupatello smoothed the way. Boessenkool also brought Tasers to Canada.
Update: More on Boessenkool from the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives -
http://www.policyalternatives.ca/monitorissues/2008/10/MonitorIssue1973/
I didn't know about Boessenkool but am aware of Gardasil. We've had Washington style lobbyists in Ottawa since Brian Mulroney's time in the sun. Right-wing think tanks used to be considered just that in Canada and carried little influence with government before the 1980's. Today they bend the ears of our elected corporate hirelings in government and non-elected red chamber senators alike.
I didn't know about Boessenkool but am aware of Gardasil. We've had Washington style lobbyists in Ottawa since Brian Mulroney's time in the sun. Right-wing think tanks used to be considered just that in Canada and carried little influence with government before the 1980's. Today they bend the ears of our elected corporate hirelings in government and non-elected red chamber senators alike.
Pharma has physician profiling all figured out.
http://www.slate.com/id/2119712/
With higher stakes in the nation's capital, they probably know how to manipulate our elected representatives too. How many politicians are scientifically literate?
Pharma has physician profiling all figured out.
http://www.slate.com/id/2119712/
With higher stakes in the nation's capital, they probably know how to manipulate our elected representatives too. How many politicians are scientifically literate?
Sure they do, not only do they manipulate our elected representatives but bureaucrats too and the majority of the public as is evidenced on this board by the number of people who insist that they have our best interests at heart. LOL
...as is evidenced on this board by the number of people who insist that they ["Pharma"] have our best interests at heart. LOL
That number = 0
...as is evidenced on this board by the number of people who insist that they ["Pharma"] have our best interests at heart. LOL
That number = 0
It seem to me that your posts support a very conventional view of medicine, perhaps you do not feel that you believe they have your best interests at heart but I take you as a supporter of the system from your posts.
That's a personal attack, by the way.
It also demonstrates an astonishing lack of perception on your part.
(That's another personal attack).
I spent a number of years trying to deal with osteoarthritis in both knees. I tried a lot of the herbal remedies, and at least as many prescription drugs. None worked. There is no magic bullet in a lot of cases. The only benefit seems to accrue to the manufacturers and retail pharmaceutical industries. Knee replacement surgery and exercise finally worked.
A bitter pill for alternative medicine
It's not hard to see why. Alternative therapy has become big business. In the UK alone more than 150,000 practitioners treat one in five of us and collectively we spend £450m a year on everything from acupuncture to homeopathy and Prof Ernst has not exactly been the supporting voice many hoped he would be.
During the past 16 years he has published more than 1,000 research papers and the overwhelming majority have concluded the evidence from clinical trials shows many alternative therapies have little or no beneficial effect.
That's a personal attack, by the way.
It also demonstrates an astonishing lack of perception on your part.
(That's another personal attack).
Sorry I can't stay to argue the point, I don't see how saying you seem to support conventional medicine constitutes an attack but then I never feel anything but attacked by you, you make this board an extremely unpleasant place for me, your hostility is palpable. Does that constitute an attack also? LOL
I find this board to be extremely supportive of the conventional view of medicine, the opposition to alternatives is scathing as can be seen in this thread.
Back to the beginning of the thread, so government doesn't find any evidence that homeopathy helps people, no fucking surprise there people. Pharmaceutical companies have extremely powerful lobbies and it is not in their interest to see any positive studies in any case.
As I said I am not so interested in homeopathy and have no interest in defending it but I am interested in seeing people take responsiblity for their own health in whatever fashion they choose to.
Knee replacement surgery and exercise finally worked.
I trust the surgery was performed by a physician, and not a homeopath?
Some homeopaths are also allopathic physicians.
http://www.darshem.org/sys-tmpl/homeopathy/
Looks like some people on this board would like to outlaw both objective appraisal and independent thought on any form of medicine but the ones they approve.
I guess they'll just keep taking their medicine... and I can guess what will happen next.
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/406716_1
With regard to the homeopathy link: the royals probably didn't suffer from the plague as often as common folk because their palaces didn't have the same degree of rodent infestation - plague (Yersinia pestis) carried by fleas on rats.
Homeopathy has no side effects because it doesn't do anything at all.
With regard to the article referenced on medscape: it's meaningless to talk about the harms without discussing the benefits.
Looks like some people on this board would like to outlaw both objective appraisal and independent thought on any form of medicine but the ones they approve.
I guess they'll just keep taking their medicine... and I can guess what will happen next.
I find it's better to ridicule public figures than other people on this board.
The only people I know who would like to "outlaw both objective appraisal and independent thought on any form of medicine but the ones they approve" are the money-stuffed quacks of the British Chiropractic Society. They're trembling in their boots that the golden goose may stop laying, so they've resorted to slapp suits.
The reason quacks sue people of science is because their quackery depends on unsubstantiated word-of-mouth, which is particularly vulnerable to rival word-of-mouth (widely read newspaper articles, media reports, etc.).
That's exactly the same reason serious scientific practitioners don't sue the quacks. Their science stands or falls on evidence and peer review - not on gossip.
Unionist wrote,
I find it's better to ridicule public figures than other people on this board.
Ah, the old ad-hominem attack distraction. I don't know the homme, only know what he has shared with the board.
Humor can awaken people to dangers, and that can help when unquestioning adherence to pharma-promoted propaganda can be murder - or suicide.
Canadians must take responsibility for their own health and take action to promote public health and the safe and effective use of medications everywhere through research, education and consultation.
SLAPP suits? Will have to look into that, thank you. I am more concerned about the registration and validity of "scientific" studies and the morbidity and mortality that can result than in hunting alleged fraud of quacks.
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/302/9/977?home
Comment to Sineed: Royals, if anyone, should be first in line to get the plague - just think of all the meet and greet and hand shaking they have to do.
Trevormkidd wrote,
"No comparing adverse events from medicine that works with "medicine" at doesn't work is not directly relevant.
Like I said, automobiles using homeopathic gasoline have never killed pedestrians. Its a miracle! Cars using real gasoline can actually move and with that comes benefits and negatives. Cars using homeopathic gasoline have neither benefits or negatives.
It is the same as air travel. There are some risks involved, but people accept those risks because they feel that the benefits outweigh the risks. Sitting at home pretending that you are flying in your mind carries lower risks. "
"Homeopathic gasoline" - is that WATER?
http://www.mobilemag.com/2006/05/31/prototype-car-runs-100-miles-on-four-ounces-of-water-as-fuel/
I love science.
That's a personal attack, by the way.
No, it isn't. Why are you deliberately muddying the issue of personal attacks? Do you really not understand what one is?
I dislike blind faith. Woo has its own dangers, but corporate interests are dictating what shall be policy and what shall be taught at Canadian universities -
http://www.thespec.com/specialsections/section/BlindFaith/263482
That scares me.
Update: Whatever happened to the physician's vow - the Primum - "First do no harm"?
Do you really not understand what one is?
If I say you have an astonishing lack of perception, I am making an attack on you personally, as opposed to responding to - or even "attacking" - your opinions and statements.
Contrary to popular belief, a personal attack does not have to hurt someone's feelings in order to be a personal attack.
Similarly, not all comments that are considered "hostile" by the recipient are personal attacks. For example, if I say "WTF are you talking about?" that's certainly capable of being interpreted as "hostile", but since it is directed at the content of someone's speech, rather than the character, intelligence, or motives of the person herself, it is not a "personal" attack.
So you see, I really do understand what a personal attack is. Do you?
I recently overheard a neurologist bragging about his $1M home. He is paid by a university and pharma. I'd like to say that I think his work is supported by questionable sources of funding, ask how he can justify showy personal expenditures in a province where people often don't have enough to eat, and state that I find it hard to believe that he has patients' best interests at heart. Would that be considered a personal attack? Inquiring minds want to know.
edit...
There's a tasty Dandelion Coffee recipe here -
http://www.deliciousbynature.com/?p=390
and information on marijuana's medicinal and curative effects on cancer at a Canadian site, Phoenix Tears.
http://www.phoenixtears.ca/
So you see, I really do understand what a personal attack is. Do you?
Yes, I do. And contrary to what you claimed, ennir's post was not.
It seem to me that your posts support a very conventional view of medicine, perhaps you do not feel that you believe they have your best interests at heart but I take you as a supporter of the system from your posts.
The point of ennir's post was to characterize me as a "supporter of the system."
It's as much a personal attack as if I had said that judging from her posts she was an opponent of science and rationality.
She says, "from your posts", "it seems to me". Perhaps she is incorrect, but that does not mean she has made a personal attack. If she had said, in some other context, "from your posts you seem to be supporting the pro-war position", whether or not that is correct, it is simply her perception. She is not saying that you ARE something. Therefore, by even a very loose definition of what a personal attack is, this is not a personal attack.
The only reason I care to argue this is because it seems a few people here don't understand, or are deliberately confusing (in order to sabotage a current discussion, perhaps) what a personal attack is. That is why we need an objective definition.
Just because you're offended by someone's observation or interpretation of your posts (not of you, personally) doesn't mean they have personally attacked you. It may mean they are simply incorrect. I don't blame ennir for coming to the conclusion she did because it seems to me as well that, historically, you seem to have supported, with very little reservation, western scientistic medicine, in almost all cases, over all other systems. Are we incorrect in that conclusion?
It's as much a personal attack as if I had said that judging from her posts she was an opponent of science and rationality.
And, by the way, the above isn't a personal attack either.
I was once a supporter of the system. Many of us are, and remain really good patients - until it nearly kills us.
Thanks jas, I was confused as to whether or not my statement could be taken as a personal attack although I thought it was pretty clearly not and I intended none but I was not confused by M.Spector and his personal attack. LOL
As Tigana, I too was a supporter of the system and ten years ago might have argued the other side but the reality is I got really sick and the system did not only not help me but it actually did harm to me. I have found my way back to health through alternatives and because of that I thoroughly support the right of people to make their own choices.
I think the studies done that have shown the effectiveness of placebos gives support to homeopathy, after all if nothing can have a positive effect perhaps traces may too.
Really? So all those big pharmaceutical companies are racing around the world attempting to patent plants with medicinal qualities because they really don't have the best interests of their investors at heart? Huh.
Not sure I made my point clearly. Herbalism may well have healing qualities. Homeopathy only has money-making qualities.
Well thank you for clearing that up.
Here is Wikipedia:
Herbalism is a traditional medicinal or folk medicine practice based on the use of plants and plant extracts. Herbalism is also known as botanical medicine, medical herbalism, herbal medicine, herbology, and phytotherapy. The scope of herbal medicine is sometimes extended to include fungal and bee products, as well as minerals, shells and certain animal parts[1].
Homeopathy:
Homeopathy (also spelled Homoeopathy or Homœopathy) is a form of alternative medicine, first proposed by German physician Samuel Hahnemann in 1796, that treats patients with heavily diluted preparations which are thought to cause effects similar to the symptoms presented. Homeopathic remedies are prepared by serial dilution with shaking by forceful striking, which homeopaths term "succussion," after each dilution under the assumption that this increases the effect of the treatment. Homeopaths call this process "potentization". Dilution often continues until none of the original substance remains.[1]
So is the study cited in the OP investigating homeopathy or herbalism?
Returning to the OP, what cures has conventional medicince developed for the common cold, memory loss, arthritis, menopausal hot flashes, prostate problems, and cancer? I'm really curious becuase I'm certain they've spent 10s of billions of the last few decades and my wife is particularly interested in the cure for hot flashes.
Many modern medicines are derived from herbs and the traditional knowledge of herbalists. For example, digitalis was developed from naturally occurring substances in foxglove. A herbal antidepressant comes from St. John's Wort. The loss of ran forest plant species to industry/corporations is not just a loss of terrain - it's a loss of healing herbs.
Re hot flashes - Maybe what is needed is not what is being offered. See
http://www.alternativementalhealth.com/articles/estogen.htm
So is the study cited in the OP investigating homeopathy or herbalism?
It appears fairly clear that the study is of folk or herbal medicines of various kinds, including acupuncture. Homeopathy is not mentioned - unsurprisingly, given that homeopathic dilutions leave (on average) zero molecules of the alleged active substance by the time they're done. The other therapies, as I indicated, actually have a scientific possibility of being effective, so they're worth investigating. Investigation of homeopathy is best left to those who claim it offers benefits. No such studies appear to exist, unfortunately.
I find it fascinating that we can go through life and and develop such certainties in areas of so much mystery.
I find it fascinating that we can go through life and and develop such certainties in areas of so much mystery.
"Mystery" would be studies showing homeopathy works, while no one yet can fathom how it works.
"Mystery" is real phenomena which human beings examine with a view to explaining and replicating.
With homeopathy, we're not at the stage of "mystery" yet.
With chiropractic, we've reached the stage of inquisition - lawsuits against those who dare to write that the emperor is naked.
I am speaking of herbal remedies. I know nothing at all about homeopathy. But I'm also speaking about reductionist approaches to health, food, and plants.
Did you read Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food? I would highly recommend it. He isn't very positive on supplements. What I mean by mystery is that we know very, very little about the natural chemicals we take for granted and how they act and interact within the environment and our bodies. The reductionist approach, as practised by both conventional health and the health food industry, is to say here is a plant. It's medicinal qualitiy is "A". This is provided by chemical "B". Extract it, test it, sell it as supplements. But what if chemial "B" is only effective when delivered by ingesting the actual plant? Does the combination of plant chemicals make a difference? Or is it maybe the way the chemical is released by the digestive process acting on the plant? For the most part, these are things we don't have a clue about and yet we can say with absolute certainty things we don't know to be certainly true.
Did you read the report on how organic foods are no more nutritous than conventionally grown foods? An analysis of that study:
“Imagine we take a group of 100 20-year-old males and ask them to run one hundred metres. We measure the time taken. Then we ask 100 20-year-old females. On average, the males will be faster. But some females will be faster than some males. So someone looking at the data cannot be absolutely certain that males are, on average, faster than females. But as we increase the number of runners, we are increasingly sure that the average male is genuinely faster than the average female and we are more confident about quantifying the underlying difference. We can do this both because we have a larger number of times but also because we can better measure the underlying variability between males and between females.
In the food study, cutting out the dodgy data cut the number of data points by 70% (so, as it were, we had fewer males and fewer females). And the apparent reliability of the data fell. But, nevertheless, the organic food (the males) was on average significantly better than the conventional food (the females) even though some results (5 out of 48 trials) suggested that conventional food had measurably more flavonoids than organic equivalents.
The result for flavonoids is replicated with the nutrient beta carotene. Beta carotene levels were over 50% higher in the average study, falling to 21% once the slightly dubious studies were extracted. In fact, organic food contains – on average – a higher percentage in 18 out of 23 specific nutrients. It is simply untrue to say, as the FSA does, that organic food contains ‘no difference’ in nutritional content. Organic foodstuffs studied in this work actually contained measurably more nutrients. But the statistical techniques used showed a relatively high probability that this was simply a matter of chance. Few nutrients showed the required 95% confidence level.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/aug/13/food-standards-agency-...
I'm not arguing any particular plant is a cure for any particular ailment. I would argue there are a great many plants that could treat and allevieate the symptoms of a great many ailments. And treat and relieve would also be the best conventional medicine can do for a great many ailments. My father died from a wasting disease for which conventional medicine had no answers. I sometime wish my father wasn't so conventional because I'm certain a little pot could have improved his quality of life in those closing months.
A herbal antidepressant comes from St. John's Wort.
The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, which, as the OP notes, is spending $2.5 billion researching so-called "alternative medicine", says, "St. John's wort is not a proven therapy for depression. If depression is not adequately treated, it can become severe. Anyone who may have depression should see a health care provider. There are effective proven therapies available."
2.5 billion spent....no alternative cures found. I wonder how many billion have been spent on not finding not alternative cures? Lets throw some big pharma budget figures out maybe?
This thread is a really good example of why I don't post here anymore. Christ on a stick. For every person I know who has been "cured" by western-standard-modern-scientific-etc medicine, I can name six who were harmed. Okay, by harmed I probably mean that they were just given something to treat symptoms in the interim, while the disease that was going to kill them went ahead and did what it was going to do but maybe slower and maybe with less pain. But it still killed them while they sat hoping to be cured and expecting a fekking miracle.
And while we sit slackjawed in awe of science and pharmaceuticals and hocus pocus doctor-magic, we are marching steadily on poisoning our planet and our food and our air and wondering why the fuck we keep getting so sick.
But ya, lets make sure no-one chooses not to be sawed open and radiated and poisoned, lets make sure we follow the doctors orders, and by all means lets make sure that any one who thinks outside the box about their own personal health is completely ridiculed for being an uninformed crazy hippy.
Gaaaaaa.
Thank you Polly B, I loved your post. I feel very much that way.
St. John's Wort, like SSRIs, can't beat placebo in clinical trials. The difference, of course, is that St. John's Wort doesn't have a black box warning for suicide nor does it induce mania. So if I had to choose between the two, I'd definitely choose St. John's Wort.
Does drinking American beer qualify as homeopathy therapy?
Many modern medicines are derived from herbs and the traditional knowledge of herbalists. For example, digitalis was developed from naturally occurring substances in foxglove. A herbal antidepressant comes from St. John's Wort. The loss of ran forest plant species to industry/corporations is not just a loss of terrain - it's a loss of healing herbs.
Re hot flashes - Maybe what is needed is not what is being offered. See
http://www.alternativementalhealth.com/articles/estogen.htm
The best selling cancer drug in history, Taxol, is derived from Yew tree bark. US taxpayers developed the drug, from basic research through to clinical trials. And then it was handed off to Bristol Meyers for profiteering. What it really was was a massive corporate welfare handout to friends of the two old line parties in the US at the time. Taxpayers typically pay for highest risk basic research, and then private enterprise collects the lowest hanging fruit for themselves. That's the way actual capitalism usually works in the US, and our guys in Ottawa play along, too.
Fidel wrote,
"The best selling cancer drug in history, Taxol, is derived from Yew tree bark. US taxpayers developed the drug, from basic research through to clinical trials. And then it was handed off to Bristol Meyers for profiteering. What it really was was a massive corporate welfare handout to friends of the two old line parties in the US at the time. Taxpayers typically pay for highest risk basic research, and then private enterprise collects the lowest hanging fruit for themselves. That's the way actual capitalism usually works in the US, and our guys in Ottawa play along, too."
And the universities play along as well. In exchange for pharma funding, our universities hand over their research work for stockholderrs' corporate profit forever after. Universities also actively recruit students and community members at sites like Craigslist for pharma clinical trial studies. And if something goes wrong after Joe or Jane College take an experimental drug, pharma walks away and the province pays their medical and disability bills, possibly for life.
A herbal antidepressant comes from St. John's Wort.
The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, which, as the OP notes, is spending $2.5 billion researching so-called "alternative medicine", says, "St. John's wort is not a proven therapy for depression. If depression is not adequately treated, it can become severe. Anyone who may have depression should see a health care provider. There are effective proven therapies available."
Designed on a weak and dishonest theory of neurochemistry, at best antidepressants are barely more effective than placebos - or perhaps water:
http://www.cpa.ca/cpasite/userfiles/Documents/Effectiveness%20of%20antid...
And at worst...
http://www.ssristories.com/
Thanks, M. Spector, for your mention of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. I had not noticed that the source of the money for the funding Snuckles mentioned at the beginning of this thread was the flawed and dishonest National Institute of Health.
http://www.rabble.ca/comment/1026773/Critics-find-NHSs-£12m
The NIH is a lapdog for corporate protection - like America's CDC and FDA. They in turn lead Health Canada around by the nose. Health Canada is supposed to protect Canadians, but now refers to big pharma as "our client".
http://www.whp-apsf.ca/en/documents/no_harm.html
Remember Percy Schmeiser and the seeds?
http://www.percyschmeiser.com/
Remember bovine growth hormone in milk?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovine_somatotropin
Very good for Monsanto; not so healthy for us.
(edit complete)
Closing for length.