If I read too much, excuse me. But what I mean is there is only so far that society can go in deciding when it comes to a person deciding what therapy is best.
I could turn that around and ask what your intention was in invoking the common good here, especially when we are talking about people choosing alternative therapies.
Did I invoke the common good? I might have invoked the Social Contract. You are correct it is a legitimate debate as to how far society can go in regulating activities undertaken by its citizens.
Caissa, if you are going to say that it is society's business, then that's what you said, no?
Hoffer and no control studies...
Hoffer wrote in all his books that right from the beginning, it is unethical to conduct controlled studies. When you find a treatment that works and that the patients are suffering from a lack of that treatment, to then withold that treatment to some simply for the advancements of science is wrong, inhumane, and unethical.
A case in point on the ethics of witholding treatment was the Tuskegee Syphillis Trials where white men who contracted syphillis were given penicillin while the black men were studied to see how the disease progressed in them over the course of their lives.
Could it be possible that if Hoffer did actually use clinical trials with a control and experimental group, he would have been charged by the same mainstream nay-sayers that he witheld pertinent treatments to people for the purposes of scientific discovery instead of treating them so that they would get well?
You cannot have it both ways.
that certainly sums up what I believe psychiatry to be in a literal sense.
I'm certainly in support of persons seeking treatment to have as much information as they desire and to put all their energies behind a treatment plan that is theirs, because win or lose they will feel better because it was their choice. If it fails and it was someone elses choice that's not something that words can adequately describe.
I also support mental health practitioners who have chosen to pursue and expand a discipline of human health that is so imperfectly understood; I have seen panels of psychiatrists baying for the blood of an unprofessional colleague, people might be surprised that an angry mob could be formed so quickly at the behest of dignified patient treatment.
its a hard thing; made harder if no one will work together
I also would like to remind people that PsychedOut is an anti-psychiatry thread. It is very much anti medical establishment. It is a thread for people who have suffered at the hands of psychiatry and have been abused by the mainstream medical system. This thread would consider psychiatry at its very core to have absolutely no scientific validity for any of its treatments: major tranquillizors which chemically lobotomize people and leave them with long term irreversible neurological damage; antidepressants, which are toxic and dangerous; physical restraints; surgical lobotomies, which surgically removes key areas of the brain; electro convulsive therapy which causes permanent brain damage and memory loss; institutionalization; and the diagnostic manuals which uses non-scientific methods to invent new labels for people, labels which have dangerous long-term consequences, especially to women.
Yet, some of you find it meaningful to criticize and mock a non-invasive treatment program that on a huge anecdotal level speaks volumes for its success. Then you choose to uphold the principles of mainstream medical research of which psychiatry is a pillar as reflecting the virtues of valid medical science. These are the very treatments which many in the anti-psychiatry movement abhor for it's violent and abusive practices.
Agreed Goggles Pissanno. There should be no space for refuters of this "medicinal-based" haullicnogens by the PharmIndustry.
Thank you Ryan. And yes, we do have to work together.
that certainly sums up what I believe psychiatry to be in a literal sense.
I'm certainly in support of persons seeking treatment to have as much information as they desire and to put all their energies behind a treatment plan that is theirs, because win or lose they will feel better because it was their choice. If it fails and it was someone elses choice that's not something that words can adequately describe.
I also support mental health practitioners who have chosen to pursue and expand a discipline of human health that is so imperfectly understood; I have seen panels of psychiatrists baying for the blood of an unprofessional colleague, people might be surprised that an angry mob could be formed so quickly at the behest of dignified patient treatment.
its a hard thing; made harder if no one will work together
Gr8 pt/ How do we get there?
We can't ignore people who have helped themselves? Can We?
Nutrition has helped me. Anyone else?
Most in this situation cannot afford nutrition. How do we address that?
I meant to say Nutrition has helped me come back from a slumber. How do we carry it forward?
This should be a safe space. I hope y'all won't wreck that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDj8kkVwisY
Dun try your medicinal diagnosis. Try some real world.
K
Fuck that scientific shit. It's all biased. Fo Sho!
Prove it's unbiased non-believers like Sineed and timebandit.
Can't? Why do you keep tryin?
Hey, if the paycheque's worth it, I can't blame you. But don't try to fool us, ya hear?
Hey Googles Pissano! Thanks! I'm on a new tip friend. Some folk might try and discredit you and I'm not the best friend but Thanks! Keep on helping friend. They'll get it someday. Rock on!
Here's an obscure song we all need to click on. Let it play and the refrain be your reverb. C'mon Son///
Most in this situation cannot afford nutrition. How do we address that?
Exactly. Many pharmaceutical drugs are subsidized through drug plans and vitamins are not.
Most in this situation cannot afford nutrition. How do we address that?
Exactly. Many pharmaceutical drugs are subsidized through drug plans and vitamins are not.
Preach on. Why the fuck is this? The sheeple can change this if we want. You gonna let Sineed and timebandit, the interlocutors, decide this for us?
Meh, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dcVOmEQzKA
We can overcome this friends. No need to be outshouted by these freaks.
I wanna go crazy! hahahahahhahhahahha!
I'm gonna make u dance! HA!
Personally, I think encouraging people to do things to their bodies that don't work and are potentially harmful is a really bad idea.Are you sure about that? Because cell phones work and are, at the same time, potentially incompatible with human health.
Word, Fidel! Fuck this, we're screwed, theyll cut us offf.
Before you know it, they'll be hitting my spelling mistakes.
Personally, I think encouraging people to do things to their bodies that don't work and are potentially harmful is a really bad idea.
Ah! So as long as something works, like cell phones, then it's okay. That cell phone tech works and is a huge moneymaker for big business nullifies the potential for harm to human health.
If you're abnormal, then you're normal and vice versa. Believe me we are mostly all abnormal and some more than others.
If you're abnormal, then you're normal and vice versa. Believe me we are mostly all abnormal and some more than others.
So succinct Fidel!
K, I dunno wuaaup?
I've been healthy. Hello? Space?
Then, there is the issue of quackery.
Dr. Abram Hoffer...
1. was the Director of Psychiatric Research at the University of Saskatchewan for many years.
2. Discovered the only known cure for schizophrenia and addictions.
3. Practiced psychiatry for over 65 years.
4. Was a member in good standing through his entire career with the Sasktchewan and British Columbian Medical Associataions.
5. Was a member in good standing through his entire career with the Canadian and American Psychiatric Associations.
6. Treated over 10,000 patients in 65 years of practice - none of whom ever overdosed on vitamins nor suffered from any toxicity of any kind.
7. Was never taken to the Boards of the Saskatchewan nor British Columbian Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons and stripped of his licence to practice medicine.
8. While most psychiatrists are relatively easy to access, Dr. Hoffer had a 2 1/2 year waiting list to get in to see.
Dr. Linus Pauling was a two-time Nobel Prize winner, one for his work on peace, and the other for his contributions to medical research. He was highly esteemed and highly celebrated as one of the greatest medical scientists EVER until he spoke out in favour of nutrition based medicine. He could have recanted at any time and regained his international stature, but persisted until the day he died to promote the advancements in orthomolecular medicine.
Where is the quackery? Where is your toxicity?
When some of you consistently dismiss my story, you are implying that I am a liar and a fool. You are also dismissing the 10,000 people that Dr. Hoffer treated over the last 65 years as being liars and fools as well. I want you all to know that NONE of you are welcome to ever redefine who I am.
None of you who glibly debunk nutrition based medicine have ever read a book by any of these authors. You know neither the history nor the methodology, yet you claim to be experts on the subject, and have more expertise on the matter than the people who have lived it and worked with it first hand, and more of an expert than a highly esteemed Nobel Prize winner for his contributions to medical science.
If anyone else had the impeccible resume that Dr. Abram Hoffer had, you would recognize him as a highly esteemed medical professional, but you flippantly debunk his years of expertise and leadership as quackery.
I also take issue with others dismissing orthomolecular medicine as "alternative medicine". These are very real medical doctors who received their medical training from highly recognized medical instutions in North America and Europe. They prescribe drugs just like other medical doctors do. The only difference is that they prescribe vitamins, minerals, and amino acids when needed. All the medical research conducted into nutritional based medicine was conducted by teams of medical doctors, leaders in their fields of study. You cannot get more mainstream than this. Give up the alternative labelling, please. It is called "orthomoleculaar medicine" or "nutrition based medicine". It is a very sad day when we allow ourselves and others to refer to 'nutrition' as 'alternative'.
Re: Anecdotal evidence - I agree with you on not completely ignoring anecdote, and good science does not do that. However, in the face of strong, non-anecdotal evidence (which exists in this case) that contradicts the anecdote's claim...
If only that were true, Timebandit. I have said to you repeatedly on previous posts that the methodology for these repeat studies refuting the vitamin claims are fraudulent. For instance, for a study claiming that taking 1000 mg of vitamin C a day for six months reduces the incidence of colds by 50%, the repeat study debunking that claim used 10 mg of vitamin C for three weeks. You are trying to convince people that 1/100th the dosage level for 1/8th the required length of time is legitimate? Personally, that is not science.
Dr. Hoffer said that we hold teenage girls up to a higher standard of methodology when using a recipe to bake a cake correctly than we do from highly educated medical researchers supposedly performing repeat studies for the common good.
It is very hypocritical for you to insist, even after I have told you repeatedly of the faulty methodology, that you have strong non-anecdotal evidence. This simply is not true.
Who is funding these studies debunking the merits of vitamins? If a major corporation which manufactures patented OTC products like cough syrups, or decongestants is funding these studies, then perhaps one could argue that they have a financial motive in seeing the success of vitamins like vitamin C helping cure colds flop since the success of vitamin C would severely reduce their market base if consumers opted for vitamin c instead of their own products.
Before you flippantly argue AGAIN the conclusiions of these expert findings as de facto proof that vitamin claims are unsubstantiated quackery, do your research.
1. Find out who funded the research debunking vitamin benefits.
2. Look at the fine print, you know, down in the legal jargon where you need a magnifying glass to actually find the methodology imbedded in the microsoopic print because by law, they DO have to publish their methodology to be legit...
I sincerely hope that this is not the calibre of science our medical research has been reduced to.
The Ethics of the CMA and the AMA...
Dr. Hoffer devoted a chapter in his book, Orthomolecular Medicine for Physicians to his successful treatment of a man with Huntington's Disease. This man was referred to him for psychiatric issues, and as this man gradually became well mentally, he noticed that his Huntington's disease started to reverse as well. The man eventually fully recovered from Huntington's Chorea, and regained his muscle strength and was able to hold down three jobs at the same time. Dr. Hoffer is the only one in the world who has been able to successfully treat and cure a man of Huntington's disease.
Dr. Hoffer tried to get his findings and methodology published in the Lancet and other major medical journals, and he was denied publication in all of them. He was told by one journal that they would not consider publishing him on anecdote alone. He needed a controlled study.
Hoffer argued in his book, "How do I as a psychiatrist working full time in my field of study ever organize such a controlled experiment? How do I locate enough people all over the world who have Huntington's Disease? Huntington's is not common, and there is no publication list anywhere that has the names of people with Huntington's Disease that I can just phone people up." Peoples' medical records are private.
If the CMA was skeptical:
1. A team of independent doctors should have come to Saskatchewan to see for themselves if there was a reversal of Huntington's Disease or not. They did not do this.
2. If still skeptical, they should have provided other Huntington's patients the EXACT same methodology over the EXACT same time frame to observe for themselves. They did not do this.
3. The CMA, with the resources, should have conducted their own control studies, but they did not.
It is very easy to dismiss a claim when no one even bothered to examine it's validityf. The CMA is an organization that promotes the interests of better health for all Canadians. They claim that they are sincerely interested in Huntington's Disease.
To this day, Dr. Hoffer's discovery into a cure for Huntington's Disease remains dormant. People are suffering from it with no hope for any form of recovery because Hoffer's methodology was silenced by "pure scientific process." The people who have Huntington's Disease are not even given the option of choosing orthomolecular treatments because they simply do not know that it has been out there for over 40 years.
How ethical is that? Where is their choice in the matter?
Sixty years ago, Dr. Hoffer noticed that some of his patients with Multiple Sclerosis would fully recover when on nutritional based medicine. Not all would, but some would. He tried to get his findings published, but no one would publish them.
Dr. Hoffer went to the Canadian Multiple Sclerosis Society to let them know of his findings so that people with Multiple Sclerosis would know about possible treatment options. According to Hoffer in his book Orthomolecular Medicine for Physicians, The Canadian Multiple Sclerosis Society would not allow people with MS access to Dr. Hoffer's findings and methodology that worked with some people.
People who are suffering are denied alternative options to consider. They are given absolutely no choice in the matter about what they may want to do.
IMO, this goes way beyond unethical. It is arguably criminal, and all for the so-called purity of science.
Please note, to date, mainstream medicine has not been able to accomplish anything comparable to the total long-term revesal of MS that Dr. Hoffer has witnessed with his vitamin therapies. How many billions of dollars is poured annually into MS research? For over 60 years, Hoffer's successes have been known, and all these years of silencing him for "scientific purity" has accomplished absolutely nothing than to slow down the successes of truly finding a way out for people with Multiple Sclerosis. WHAT A SACRILAGE! WHAT A WASTE!
Anecdotal evidence vs. proper mainstream scientific methodology...
I hope the current independent studies probe into breast cancer drugs forces people to realize how fraudulent many pharmaceutical companies' own studies are. These are studies which grossly exaggerate the benefits of their own drugs and under report the toxic side-effects of their drugs when compared to independent research findings into the same drugs. They then use these doctored results to get their products fast-tracked through the USFDA and Health Canada, and all with no studies exploring their long-term health consequences.
The purity of mainstream science is oh so shrouded in public safety.
But, again, most people are conspicuously silent on this. It is science working for the common good.
RP, you're being hostile on a personal level. Please stick to the issues at hand and stop the personal attacks.
Suck it up, princess.
Knock off the personal attacks and check your privilege.
Truth is, vitamins are not manufactured by hippies living in communes. Vitamins are the biggest of Big Pharma, sales in excess of $30 billion a year in the US alone. Misinformation around vitamins helps support an industry that in reality has not been proven to improve health outcomes except in cases where demonstrable vitamin deficiencies existed.
As a health care professional, I support whatever people feel makes them feel better as long as what they are doing isn't harmful. But if they ask me, I have to tell them the truth. If I don't, I'm supporting the spread of misinformation, and also, it's patronizing.
Here's a good fact sheet on vitamins:
http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/MVMS-HealthProfessional/
Taking an MVM increases nutrient intakes and helps people obtain recommended intakes of vitamins and minerals when they cannot meet these needs from food alone. The Food and Nutrition Board (FNB) notes that RDAs and AIs for nutrients are levels of intake one should ingest, on average, each day from the diet [7]; the FNB does not address whether or to what extent nutrient supplements can compensate for dietary inadequacies. Nevertheless, some consider use of an MVM as a form of dietary or nutritional "insurance," a concept first introduced by Miles Laboratories in marketing its One-A-Day® line of nutrient supplements [8].
Although MVMs can improve the intake adequacy of various nutrients, they can also increase the likelihood that users will have intakes of other nutrients at levels that are higher than ULs.
Most of the studies of the potential value of MVMs to enhance health and prevent disease have been observational, which can only suggest an association but do not prove a cause-effect relationship. Some have suggested potential benefits or adverse effects, while others have found none.
at least we have a health care professional to bring us the truth
no need to be simply a human being when expressing your own belief, it's better to state your authority over such matters and then warn against patronizing in the same sentence
Truth is, vitamins are not manufactured by hippies living in communes. Vitamins are the biggest of Big Pharma, sales in excess of $30 billion a year in the US alone. Misinformation around vitamins helps support an industry that in reality has not been proven to improve health outcomes except in cases where demonstrable vitamin deficiencies existed.
The studies I have seen is the Americans consume $7 billion dollars annually, which is huge.
Yes, it is big pharma also, but there is a difference...
Vitamins are synthetic versions of nutrients found naturally in the foods we eat. They have an identical molecular structure to these naturally occuring nutrients. Our bodies understand their molecular structure, and can use them to heal and repair themselves in many areas of the body. This is why orthomolecular physicians found that as their patients healed mentally, other ailments went away too like arthritis, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, gastrointestinal disorders, dermatological disorders, auto-immune disorders, some people with cancer, etc.
Patented drugs, on the other hand, must have a chemical structure that is unique to anything found in the entire known universe in order to be patentable. Patented drugs are not natural to our bodies, and they have many dangerous side effects that vitamins do not have, and they can cause very serious long term damage if used for long periods of time.
Our bodies are designed by nature to be self healing and self correcting when given the resources to do so. Patented drugs do not offer any of these benefits.
You have not done your research I mentioned either.
1. Who funds these repeat studies debunking vitamin merits?
2. What methodology did they use in order to debunk the claim?
3. How many minutes did you have learning about vitamins and minerals as a part of your curriculum?
Patented drugs are toxic and dangerous and cause over 100,000 deaths each year in the United States alone, and that is with people taking the required prescribed dosages alone; this does not include deaths by deliberate self-overdosing. Despite medical healthcare professional's concerns about toxicities in vitamins, which are negligible at best, they remain conspicuously silent on the damaging consequences of people consuming so many prescription drugs.
People do not get depression because of a deficiency of antidepressant medications. People do not get psychotic because of a deficiency in major tranquillizers. These drugs are very harmful, and all they serve to do is mask the symptoms without addressing the underlying metabolic cause of their depression or psychosis.
A proper diet supplimented with the right vitamins and minerals and amino acids in their correct amounts will gradually, over time, correct the underlying cause of mental illness. Orthomolecular medicine has the ability to get to the root cause of a mental illness while mainstream medicine is unable to do so. That is why many people who are mentally ill and receiving conventional treatments are kept on their treatments for life.
People do not get pain due to a deficiency in aspirin. However, people know that aspirin can mask the symptoms of pain. If a person breaks their leg, a doctor will prescribe pain killers to ease the pain. The doctor will also set the broken bone, and put the broken leg in a cast. As long as there is pain during the healing process, the doctor will keep the patient on pain killers.
With psychiatry today, simply giving out patented drugs to mask the symptoms of mental illness is akin to a doctor giving a person with a broken bone pain killers, but not proceeding to mend the broken leg, leaving the patient permanently deformed and disfigured for life, and likely on pain killers for life.
How irresponsible.
If a house plant is wilting, we automatically ask the following questions...
1. Is the plant getting the proper amount of sunshine? Too much, too little?
2. Is there enough water in the soil?
3. Are there enough nutrients the plant is getting? If not, we will fertilize the plant.
Our healthcare professionals, on the other hand, do not feel that there is any link whatsoever with nutrition and mental and physical health. They receive, at best, token recognition of it as a part of their study, and are learned to fear and avoid nutritional solutions at all times because nutrition is so harmful and dangerous. On previous posts, they have actually used the term...TOXIC.
The only animals that really get sick are people and other animals that are dependent on people for their nutritional needs.
Many of our fruits and vegetables must travel from Mexico, Florida, and southern California to reach us. Most of the nutritional value is lost within the first hour of picking. We know this.
Major Agrifood industries, sell us quick and easy processed foods with tons of food preservatives in them so that they have a long shelf life. They doctor the foods up with food dyes to make them look nicer, and they plaster them with tons of salt and artificial flavours to make them taste better. Our crops are sprayed with herbicides and pesticides. Animals are innoculated with anti-biotics and fed growth hormones. Crops are now genetically modified and patented to be herbicide resistant.
Then we wonder why there is so much disease and mental illness around us. Yes, there is no proof linking any of this to mental health. However, when people do opt for more natural food choices, there health does improve dramatically. Unfortunately, this is like talking communism. It strikes right at the heart of big pharma, and big agra.
Nope, no connection, and big business does not even have to adhere to proper methodological protocols in order to debunk solutions they see as a direct threat to their profit margins.
Thanks GP
Yes, thanks, GP. Good point from Sineed re: the marketing of vitamins, but better point from Goggles about the body's assimilation of vitamins vs. synthetics foreign to its makeup. Also, Sineed's info refers to multivitamin supplements, which tend to be much more heavily marketed over any single vitamin. There has been some question about the benefits vs. harm of taking general use multivitamins. It makes sense that vitamin needs will differ from person to person, season to season, region to region, and at different points in one's life.
I recommend Dr Ray Strands book "What your doctor doesnt know about nutrional medicine may be killing you
Not sure about this Ray Strand guy - in a couple of minutes of googling, I found that he makes declarative statements about vitamin supplementation that are not evidence-based, and also he makes millions from the sales of the vitamins he promotes.
True but none of his books say use this specific brand or anything. His site does though
Not sure about this Ray Strand guy - in a couple of minutes of googling, I found that he makes declarative statements about vitamin supplementation that are not evidence-based, and also he makes millions from the sales of the vitamins he promotes.
The problem starts with "googling". Ever think about that?...
Is that how weak we are? We rely on google? Ever heard of doing your own research?...
Google is like the corporation with their own app.
It's all good kids. Wake up and smell the affirmation.
Not sure about this Ray Strand guy - in a couple of minutes of googling, I found that he makes declarative statements about vitamin supplementation that are not evidence-based, and also he makes millions from the sales of the vitamins he promotes.
The problem starts with "googling". Ever think about that?...
Is that how weak we are? We rely on google? Ever heard of doing your own research?...
You understand about search engines, right? Like how Google is kinda sorta an online card catalogue of the internet?
Usually when an author writes a non-fiction book, there are commonly footnotes at the bottoms of pages, and chapter bibliographies of studies referenced and researched to reach the conclusions they made in their chapters. They also supply the bibliographies of further readings in their books.
On websites, authors do not include these things. A website would be a catchy summary of the book with bulleted headlines of what would be elaborated on in the book. Therefore, to a simple googler, it would appear they are making blanket assertions without any studies to back up their claims.
RP is correct.
Simply googling and finding debunked this and that headlines is not "first source" referencing, and lacks any real credibility in recognized academic institutions. First source researching would mean that you need to look at the actual study debunking a vitamin claim and finding out who financed the study, and then looking at the methodology they used to debunk the claim. You will find that the repeat study research conclusions that you quote from on websites have been found on later examination to have had the methodology doctored in order to fudge the results.
Simply google searching things for two or three minutes does not accomplish this.
I want to elaborate further about the faults of our existing nutrition. A deer eats a plant that is alive and whole. All the nutritents from the plant go directly into the deer's digestive tract. We pick a plant, put it in a sealed container and may eat it five days later. That plant will have almost no nutritional value.
A grizzley bear will go into a lake and pull out a fish. It will eat the whole fish alive and whole. I speak from experience when I tell you that I will catch a fish, fillet only the outside flesh. I will throw away the guts and the bones, and put the fish in a freezer bag and stick it in the freezer for 6 weeks. Then I will fry the fish in the future. Most of the nutritional value of that fish has been wasted.
Meat and vegetables are recognized as nutritious and healthy food choices, but we know how to destroy even that.
The more we remove ourselves from the food chain, the more illness we are going to see.
It makes sense that vitamin needs will differ from person to person, season to season, region to region, and at different points in one's life.
I agree with this statement 100%
I am not sure if Jas is aware that she just debunked the scienfic validity of RDA's, RDA's that were never based on empirical evidence, but which captured the hearts and imaginations of doctors and nutritionists all over the world.
You really are a subversive to the mainstream medical establishment after all.
Food Allergies vs. Food Intolerances
Doctors are aware of food allergies. They can test for the presence of them. The body produces physical antibodies immunoglobulin E, and they consider allergies to be a valid medcal condition.
Food Intolerances do not produce antibodies, but your body does react to the offending substance. Doctors are trained to not take food intolerances seriously, only food allergies.
Food intolerances can cause severe depression in some and other forms of mental illness in others.
The way to test for the presence of food intolerances is to go on the elimination diet. You quit eating for 5 days. You drink only water during that time. If over the course of the five days, your depression or other symptoms improve, then you are eating a food or foods which are making you feel unwell.
After five days, you start adding one food item at a time to your diet and then you monitor how you respond to that food. For instance, for breakfast on day one of reintroducing foods, just boil some eggs, and eat only those eggs. If nothing happens, then you are not intolerant of eggs. If you do get depressed, then quit eating eggs, your body cannot handle eggs.
Wait until you are not depressed again. Then for the next meal, try say carrot sticks, and only carrot sticks. IF nothing happens, then for the next meal, try say strawberries. If nothing happens, then for the next meal, try bread. IF you get sick, then your body cannot handle bread.
Wait for your body to get better, and then try something else.
It is STRONGLY recommended that if you eat chicken on day one, to not eat chicken for another four days. It is called the rotation diet. Rotating foods for four days prevents you from ever building up intolerances to certain foods.
Major food intolerance culprits are: dairy, poultry, bread or other grains, apples, oranges, rice.
Dr. Hoffer considers dairy and grains to be the worst culprits of all. He advocates for no bread or pasta, no dairy products, no sugar, no flour, no caffeine, and no foods to which you are intolerant to.
Dr. Hoffer was a quack.
The story is told by Dr. Abram Hoffer himself, the originator of the pyroluria hypothesis. It started with a reasonable idea – since LSD mimics some of the clinical findings of schizophrenia, perhaps we can learn something about the biology of schizophrenia by studying the effects of LSD on the body. He specifically looked at the urine of patients given high doses of LSD before and after treatment....
Pyroluria (which has various spellings, but this seems to be the most common in current use) did not survive replication. A number of studies in the 1970s failed to confirm the presence of kryptopyrrole in the urine of patients with schizophrenia or prophyria. For example, Gendler et al found no hemopyrrole or kryptopyrrole in the urine of healthy subjects or schizophrenics.Jacobson et al found similar negative results.
...
In this case Hoffer decided that he was not the victim of a failed hypothesis, but rather the victim of a conspiracy of mainstream psychiatry that was simply closed to his revolutionary ideas. He founded the journal Orthomolecular Psychiatry, now the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine – a fringe journal in which he could continue to publish his ideas.
...
The bigger picture here (as with psychomotor patterning) is that it is a fundamentally flawed and failed strategy to essentially take your ball and leave the playground when mainstream science does not support your theory.
...
Hoffer has had 40 years to do more and more rigorous research, to produce the data that would convince even a skeptical mainstream scientific community that his ideas are correct. If he truly believes that he is right, then this is the path that would help the most patients by changing the standard of care. Rather, he formed his own fringe journal and fringe community where he can brood about the conspiracy of mainstream psychiatry and rail against the dogma of rigorous scientific research.
Vitamin therapy killed people with AIDS in Africa
Matthias Rath still has many supporters in Europe, as you will shortly see. He walked into South Africa with all the acclaim,self-confidence and wealth he had amassed as a successful vitamin-pill entrepreneur in Europe and America,and began to take out full-page adverts in newspapers.
‘The answer to the AIDS epidemic is here,’ he proclaimed. Anti-retroviral drugs were poisonous, and a conspiracy to kill patients and make money.‘Stop AIDS Genocide by the Drugs Cartel’said one headline.‘Why should South Africans continue to be poisoned with AZT? There is a natural answer to AIDS.’ The answer came in the form of vitamin pills. ‘Multivitamin treatment is more effective than any toxic AIDS drug.’‘Multivitamins cut the risk ofdeveloping AIDS in half.
...
Tragically,Matthias Rath had taken these ideas to exactly the right place. Thabo Mbeki, the President of South Africa at the time,was well known as an ‘AIDS dissident’,and to international horror, while people died at the rate of one every two minutes in his country,he gave credence and support to the claims of a small band ofcampaigners who variously claim that AIDS does not exist, that it is not caused by HIV, that anti-retroviral medication does more harm than good,and so on. At various times during the peak of the AIDS epidemic in South Africa their government argued that HIV is not the cause of AIDS, and that anti-retroviral drugs are not useful for patients.They refused to roll out proper treatment programmes, they refused to accept free donations ofdrugs,and they refused to accept grant money from the Global Fund to buy drugs. One study estimates that if the South African national government had used anti-retroviral drugs for prevention and treatment at the same rate as the Western Cape province (which defied national policy on the issue), around 171,000 new HIV infections and 343,000 deaths could have been prevented between 1999 and 2007.
http://badscience.net/files/The-Doctor-Will-Sue-You-Now.pdf
Ben Goldacre was originally prevented from publishing the above because Mathias Rath was suing him.
