|
Register | Sign In |
|
QuickSearch
Thread ▼ Details |
Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1473 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
|
Thread Info
|
|
|
Author | Topic: "Natural" (plant-based) Health Solutions | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Granny Magda Member Posts: 2462 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 3.8 |
Hi ProtoTypical,
The pharmaceutical industry is no shining example of how we should provide compassionate effective care. Oh for sure! Big Pharma sucks that's for certain. And it doesn't stop there. Anti-depressants have also been singled out for major criticism. On the other hand, take a look at this, a response to the paper you cited;
quote: So it's not like nothing is being done to address this kind of issue. This stands in stark contrast to the world of alt-med quackery, where nothing is ever disproved, no concept is too insane and very, very little testing (like the study you cited) is ever done. This is why I think that everyone who is in any way involved in medicine, alternative or otherwise, ought to be in the business of doing science based medicine. If anyone is wondering what I mean by science based medicine, it's outlined rather nicely at, er, sciencebasedmedicine.org. That's the gold standard. Anything less than that is letting patients down. Alt-med falls way, way short of this standard. Mutate and SurviveOn two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Granny Magda Member Posts: 2462 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 3.8
|
I know you think Bollinger is lying or just crazy but I'm still willing to hold out the possibility that he calculated his statistic from sources that you read differently, that he could be wrong but that he is most likely not lying or trying to deceive anyone, that he believes it. It would help if he'd spelled out his thinking of course and I wish he had. It ought to be obvious to any sane person that the statistic he cites is batshit crazy and incompatible with reality. There are no circumstances under which it is even remotely plausible. It's very easy to find out how many people survive cancer and even a cursory examination of the facts would tell you that a 97% kill-rate is nonsense. Heck, even basic common sense should be able to sniff out that rat. Ultimately, it hardly matters whether Bollinger is lying or insane. The bottom line is that he is issuing falsehoods that could cost people their lives. He routinely tells people that chemo will kill them. That's bullshit. He discourages cancer patients from opting for surgery, when surgery is the primary treatment for most cancers. All of this is grossly irresponsible and extremely dangerous. He is a crank and you should not be spreading his garbage.
But this is a problem on both sides of this. As ProtoTypical pointed out, the defenders of the conventional treatments aren't supporting their claims either, but go on prescribing stuff that doesn't work. That is not what ProtTypical pointed out at all. Even the study he cited said that 48% of drugs had a meaningful effect on survival beyond that offered by existing medications. Can alt-med match that? Can you show me even one alt-med cancer cure with that kind of success rate? No you cannot. Conventional medicine has eliminated entire diseases, raised life expectancy and brought cancer survival rates to an all-time high. Alt-med has achieved nothing at all. Ask yourself, would alt-med practitioners engage in the kind of self-criticism that takes place in Proto's cited paper? Of course not!
I agree that it would be wonderful if every claim of treatment efficacy on both sides was carefully tested by an independent agency. That's socialism!
You don't even try to support your claim that the idea that alkalinity is unfriendly to cancer is "completely untrue." Huh? Faith, you brought up the whole alkalinity thing and you didn't bother to present a shred of evidence for it. It's your pet theory, why don't you try providing some evidence. New Cat's Eye has already shown you why this cannot possibly be true. Your body is acidic. If it were alkaline, you would die.
You don't even try to support your claim that the idea that alkalinity is unfriendly to cancer is "completely untrue." Have there been any studies that confirm this claim? The claim has zero prior plausibility due to its being based upon gross misunderstandings and misrepresentations. No-one is going to test it in order to debunk it, for the same reason that no-one is going to test whether unicorn farts cure cancer. It's just mad rubbish, made up by loonies and it is in contradiction of the most basic facts of biology. It's not the job of real medical scientists to debunk every idea that pops into the heads of nutters. That would be a waste of valuable time and resources. The onus is upon the alt-med proponents to prove their own stupid theory.
Since you even acknowledge that "Big Pharma" isn't exactly trustworthy, why are you objecting to others who are of the same opinion? They're not of the same opinion. Bollinger claims that chemo will almost certainly kill you. That's just not true. Mike Adams claims that chemo will kill you. That's not true. I have no objection to valid criticisms of the pharmaceutical industry or of medical practice in general. I merely object to people who make insane claims, endanger patients and profit from exploiting the gullible.
Why shouldn't there be attempts to treat diseases without the poisons of most drugs? In the case of cancer? Because surgery and other conventional therapies represent the patients best chance of survival. In some cases, they confer an extremely high chance of survival (98% survival over five years for testicular cancer for example). In many cases, they are the patient's only chance of survival. Why would any sane person turn that down in order to gamble on some implausible magic potion?
Especially since most of the "alt-med" treatments are pretty benign natural nutritional treatments? They can be as benign as they like. Having no side effects is nice, but if they have no curative properties, choosing them over real medicine will kill you. Mutate and SurviveOn two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Granny Magda Member Posts: 2462 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 3.8
|
You talk an aggressive (and slanderous) line but I don't find it convincing Granny. Slander is for things that are not true. (Also, since I am nothing if not pedantic, slander is for oral defamation. In writing it's libel. I take an aggressive and libellous line. Just sayin'.) Surgery is the primary therapeutic intervention for cancerous tumours. This is a fact. Surgery saves lives. This is a fact. Ty Bollinger, Mike Adams and their ilk actively seek to dissuade cancer patients from undergoing surgery. This is a fact. I don't see how you can avoid the conclusion that these people are placing cancer patients' lives at risk. Of course you are free to believe what you wish, but given that you have made no attempt to dispute any of these facts, I really don't see what other conclusion you could reach.
I'm going with carrot juice and whatever else is on the diet if I have to choose.
Well for starters, as far as we know, you don't have cancer. So, yeah, sure, whatever. Go crazy. Drink carrot juice until you're as orange as Trump. That's going to be fine if you don't have cancer. For those who do have cancer however, surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy have a proven track record of saving lives. Spurn them at your peril. Mutate and SurviveOn two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Granny Magda Member Posts: 2462 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 3.8
|
I'm sure I'd accept surgery, just not the chemo or radiation. Maybe if I were younger I'd do it since of course I'd be pressured into it. Fair enough. No-one's saying that cancer patients have to take the chemo option. If you were to decide that it wasn't for you, fine, it's your choice. I'm all for patient choice. I just think that it's important for people to make informed choices, unsullied by the misinformation and outright craziness of alt-med. Also, even if you have cancer and take the surgery+chemo route... what's to stop you from drinking carrot juice? Nothing! It's not an either/or thing. Just because you have this touching faith in the miraculous powers of carrots doesn't mean that you have to refuse conventional therapy. Informed choices are great. But the scare tactics and falsehoods spread by con-artists like Adams and Bollinger do not help inform patients. Instead, they deceive them into taking risks with potentially lethal consequences.
I believe the nutrition people and don't find you convincing, not much more to say. Translation; "I am unable to come with any rational objection to your points, but I want to believe in fairies, so, la-la-la, I'm not listening again". Mutate and SurviveOn two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Granny Magda Member Posts: 2462 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 3.8 |
I haven't seen much in the way of "points" from you, mostly just loud namecalling to discredit the opposition. Her's a point for you; when Ty Bollinger says that Chemo has a 97% fatality rate he is wrong. Never mind whether he's lying, deluded or whatever. He is wrong. Do you agree that he is wrong Faith? Or are you going to defend that bit of tosh?
I didn't see ANY "scare tactics" by anybody at that conference. Telling cancer patients that chemo will kill them is the essence of a scare tactic and that's from the host of the conference.
Your going on about Mike Evans is ludicrous considering what I saw of him at the conference, a reasoned discussion of heavy metals in our environment. Mike Adams. Mike Adams is by far one of the nuttiest fruitcakes on the interwebs. Take a look at Mike Adams at his most "reasoned";
quote: Not true.
quote: Not true.
quote: No, because it's not true.
quote: Not true.
Can you trustingly place your life into their hands when you know that most of them would not even consider chemotherapy for themselves if they were diagnosed with cancer? Just not true.
quote: Wow. Just wow. Do you agree with Adams that oncologists should be prosecuted for doing their jobs? Really? All of that is from the same article by the way. Or perhaps you would prefer his cartoons;
Because comparing people to the Nazis is just so reasonable and level headed. He does that a lot you know, when he's not accusing the medical establishment of mass murder or claiming that mammograms cause cancer or that Sandy Hook was some kind of conspiracy, or that the pharmaceutical industry is deliberately spreading HIV. And there's more;
quote: So... yeah. Mike Adams. Crazy person. But I'm less interested in Mike Adams and much more interested in whether or not you agree with Ty Bollinger's statement that Chemo has a 97% fatality rate. Do you agree with that? Or is he wrong? Mutate and SurviveOn two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Granny Magda Member Posts: 2462 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 3.8 |
Okay, you're back, so let's take a look at your last few posts.
I don't know if he's wrong. All you've done is say it many times, in very insulting ways. For the record, "he" is internet health crank Ty Bollinger and here is the claim;
quote: I am astonished that you cannot work this out for yourself Faith. This is very obviously wrong, common sense ought to be enough to debunk this turkey. I mean, as if the world's oncologists are prescribing chemotherapy, day in and day out, ojnly to have 97% of their patients drop dead! And then they... they what? They just say "Yup, looks good" and carry right on prescribing poison? Does that really seem likely to you? Do you not think that some of these doctors might smell a rat if this were true? How stupid do you think they are? Are they morons?Or are they just evil? Anyway, if it's evidence you want, you can have it. Indeed, you've already been given sufficient information to show that this claim is wrong. I posted this back in Message 107 quote: That really ought to be enough to tell you that Bollinger is wrong about this. But there's more. American Cancer Society | Information and Resources about for Cancer: Breast, Colon, Lung, Prostate, Skin has slightly different figures;
quote: That's a 92% survival rate over five years, almost the complete opposite of Bollinger's claim. And what's more, chemotherapy and radiotherapy are the primary therapy for the vast majority of stage I colorectal cancer patients. The treatment is known as the Nigro Protocol.
quote: Source; Nigro Protocol for Anal Cancer Treatment | The Anal Cancer Foundation So in short, most stage I colon cancer patients get chemo. 92% of them survive over five years. How exactly is that consistent with the claim that 97% of chemo patients are dead within five years? Answer; it's not. Bollinger is wrong. Never mind whether he's crazy, lying, deluded or whatever... he's wrong. Not just wrong, but horribly, shockingly wrong. his claim is almost the complete opposite of the truth. It taints him as a source of reliable information.
And he didn't say that at the conference. What does that matter? He says it on his website. I brought this up so that you could see just how untrustworthy a source Ty Bollinger is. He is a fount of dangerously misleading information. you should not trust him. Are you prepared to admit that Bollinger is wrong on this one? Or are you going to continue to dodge? Mutate and SurviveOn two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Granny Magda Member Posts: 2462 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 3.8 |
I'll have to come back to the rest. "The rest" being the dialled-up-to-eleven craziness of Mike Adams. Since you have not responded, can I assume that you accept that Adams is... how shall we say... a dubious source of information? Remember Abraham Cherrix? You described the Hoxsey regime that he used as "weird stuff" and dissassociated yourself from it. Well, guess who's a big fan of "weird stuff"? Yep, Mike Adams' website, the supremely loony NaturalNews.com, has a number of articles promoting Hoxsey therapy. Ty Bollinger is also a fan of "Weird stuff". Isn't that "weird". If you're still in doubt, try this little beauty, from Mike Adams, on his own website;
quote: Source; Chemotherapy Stickup (comic) That will come as news to Nigro Protocol patients, who have been enjoying five year survival rates of over 90%. Most see their tumours shrink and die without recourse to surgery. Chemo can and does work. This is truly insane stuff. Adams is completely detached from reality. He's not fit to advise someone on how to treat acne, let alone cancer. He's a bad source. Don't trust him. Mutate and SurviveOn two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Granny Magda Member Posts: 2462 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 3.8
|
This looks like a very helpful source of information for sorting out all these questions about nutrition. It's all about scientific studies of the efficacy of diet and other factors related to specific diseases and health in general. Well, it's less nutty than Adams' or Bollinger's sites, so, that's something I guess. But it's still pretty flaky.
This is a doctor's website, yes an M.D., Dr. Michael Greger, who says he reads all the journals of nutrition and culls information for short videos he shows on his website, says he has thousands up by now. These are based on RESEARCH into nutrition, so those complaining that this thread is all about anecdotes should finally get some information they can appreciate. Yes, Michael Greger is a doctor. And yes, he does cite scientific studies as his sources. Sadly, Greger has a reputation for misrepresenting data. The studies he cites frequently don't say what Greger claims they do. Greger is an extremely keen vegan. He blames meat consumption for almost all illness. He has repeatedly misrepresented data in his crusade against carnivory. Here is an extract from a review of Greger's preposterously titled book How Not to Die;
quote: Here is the study. It specifically mentions that high-oxalate vegetables pose a higher risk of causing kidney stones. It concludes that a diet high in vegetables might help against kidney stones, but also states that high-oxalate vegetables might offset this benefit. The study does not say what Greger says it does. And again, from the same review;
quote: And here is that study. It says exactly what the reviewer says it does, that low meat-eaters were at less risk than non meat-eaters. That is not what Greger claimed. He is misrepresenting the data. Bear in mind here, that this review is not by some frothing hater of all things alt-med; the reviewer is a raw food advocate. Her analysis is spot on though. Greger seems to get carried away in his zeal to promote veganism and he cherry picks and misrepresents his data. Yes, he's an MD, but that only means that he ought to know better.
He also isn't selling anything, the information is free, so those complaining that the presenters at the Truth About Cancer conference were all selling something, which supposedly compromised their information. can rest easy on that score. Well, there's his book, which has been quite the little earner, selling millions of copies and I notice that his site solicits donations. But no, he does not have a gift shop tacked on to his website. He provides most of his information for free online. This is to his credit. But it does not absolve him of the way he abuses the data in order to push veganism.
I put this up when I discovered it because I thought it would provide the scientific framework the subject needs, and maybe be of help to someone else. Fair play. I respect that you are trying to zero in on the most reliable sources. Greger is something of a step in the right direction. But whilst he's no Mike Adams, he's still a poor source. Mutate and SurviveOn two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Granny Magda Member Posts: 2462 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 3.8
|
Yup another anecdote that means absolutely nothing of course. Yup. Another vague anecdote, shorn of the clinical data that might make it useful. Another venue for Wark to spread his irrational take on chemotherapy. I have to say, having watched some of the video, I find your description of it inaccurate on a number of important points.
Karen was diagnosed with some kind of lymphoma in 2005 and describes how she brought down her cancer indicators to zero over seven years of eating organic plants, using only organic fabrics and green products etc. That is not true. Karen has Waldenstrom macroglobulinemia, a type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. That's fine, but your claim that she treated it only with "organic plants, using only organic fabrics and green products etc" is wrong. Karen describes in the video how she repeatedly underwent plasmapheresis, a distinctly non-alternative treatment, wherein the blood is removed, filtered and returned. This is a recognised therapy for treating the symptoms of WM. Yet somehow, you came away from that video with the impression that she used only alternative therapies. She didn't.
She went back on her plant based treatment regime and has no more cancer for the second time. That is not true. Karen still has cancer. She even explicitly says that she will always have the cancer. What she is saying is that the indicators for lymphoma were reduced to acceptable levels. The cancer is still there, its just at a low level of activity. Yet somehow you came away from the video with the impression that she had been cured. She hasn't. So again, this video is pretty poor fare. The survival rates for WM are far from the worst to start with. Worse, even this low level of evidence isn't telling you what you think it is. You are being suckered into Chris Wark's standard MO of recounting a cancer survival anecdote, emphasising the alt-med aspects and glossing over and down-playing the conventional therapies that the patient also received. He makes a misleading video and you then credulously double-down and misrepresent it further. This only serves to demonstrate how alt-med depends upon misrepresented data and poor scientific literacy. Mutate and SurviveOn two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Granny Magda Member Posts: 2462 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 3.8 |
I just listened again to the first 18 minutes and she did not say that she "repeatedly" underwent plasmaphereis, she describes undergoing it ONCE, (somewhere around 11 on the counter) Agreed, she only describes undergoing plasmapheresis once. She does describe repeated visits to her haematologist, but is unclear on how many of those were just for testing and how many might have involved actual treatment.
That's how I hear it, I don't see any mention of any other form of treatment than the alternative methods during those first seven years. Do you? No.
Yes her word was "stability" so I shouldn't have said anything to imply cure. I didn't MEAN cure anyway, I certainly did hear her say she would always have the cancer, but that she expected to stay on her diet regime and maintain that stability which is pretty much being cancer-free as long as she keeps it up. Of course it isn't. She still has cancer. In no sense is she cancer-free. If she is well, then that's great, but it is simply false to say that she is cancer-free. Karen is alive after twelve years. 50% of patients presenting with relatively low risk WM survive for twelve years after diagnosis. (Source) Karen has done well in beating the odds, but her case isn't especially improbable.
So I believe you have misrepresented what she said. Okay, I will retract the word "repeatedly". But otherwise, my post is accurate. Still no comment on Adams or Bollinger? Mutate and SurviveOn two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Granny Magda Member Posts: 2462 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 3.8 |
The point is she had ONE plasmapheresis treatment and the numbers went back up soon after, and she had it after her relapse. The seven years before that she brought her numbers down entirely by diet and lifestyle changes. Entirely. No, the point is that you have no idea whether diet was the primary causative factor. Neither do I and neither does Chris Wark. One case is simply not enough to clearly distinguish cause and effect. For all we know, she might be onto something. Or her cancer might have followed a similar pattern anyway. This is what makes survivor anecdotes like this so worthless. And just because she only thought to mention one plasmapheresis treatment is no guarantee that she only received the one. She may have left out other important details. You just don't know.
Chemo sometimes cures people, great, Tell that to Mike Adams, the dangerous crank whose work you were recently content to promote. He claims that chemo has never helped a single person. You still have no comment to make on that?
but who wants to be poisoned into health if it's possible to do it without being poisoned? But is it possible? You have provided only the very weakest evidence to suggest that diet may be effective in some forms of cancer. That is not very convincing when conventional therapies can provide stunning survival rates. WM patients can experience years of symptom-free living between bouts of relatively tolerable chemotherapy. The disease typically responds well to chemo. Other treatments are available as well. There is no need to resort to unproven and risky treatments.
Some people get so sick on the chemo they give it up without anyone telling them there's another way, willing to die when they might not have to. You haven't proved that there is another way. On the other hand, it has been shown that alternative therapies fare worse against cancer than conventional ones. Might I remind you of the study I first cited in Message 6. It found that "Alternative Medicine (AM) utilization for curable cancer without any CCT is associated with greater risk of death.", death being two and a half times more likely for AM patients overall. Why would anybody encourage that?
Why are you so reluctant to support the fact that nutrition IS a potent treatment for some cancers? Because it has not been demonstrated that it is a fact. Nutrition is widely accepted as being a causal factor in some cancers, but I've seen nothing to convince me of any potential as a curative measure. All you've provided has been a litany of anecdotes and links to internet pundits of varying degrees of flakiness. That's just not convincing. I might ask why you are reluctant to admit that cranks like Bollinger and Adams spread dangerous misinformation.
Despite your best efforts on this one it remains true that this woman got rid of her cancer Despite your repeating this falsehood, it remains untrue. Karen still has cancer.
as well as chemo could have without the chemo, How much effect on survival chances do you imagine chemotherapy has against WM? A 20% improvement? 12%? Of course, you have no idea. I have no idea either. Without that information, it is logically impossible to know how impressive Karen's story actually is. What were her chances of survival without treatment? She doesn't say. For all we know, she might have had a fairly sizeable chance of survival. She beat the odds, but by how much? You have no way of knowing, and without knowing that, the whole anecdote is meaningless.
and since the chemo rate is only 50% for twelve-year survival my guess is her diet changes did a lot better than chemo could. No. She is alive and asymptomatic. That is the maximum level of success. Many people with WM who have chosen conventional therapies (including but not limited to chemotherapy) are also still alive and asymptomatic, even after twelve years. She may or may not have increased her chances of survival by pursuing a healthier diet, but it is impossible to tell from only a single case. What you have here is an anecdote about someone who used diet to not cure her cancer. Colour me unimpressed. Mutate and SurviveOn two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Granny Magda Member Posts: 2462 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 3.8 |
Yeah well give us the statistics for those who survived twelve years with her disease without doing anything at all. Those statistics don't exist, that's my point. Without knowing how likely it was that Karen would survive this long without treatment, we can't know how impressive her story is. For all we know, she could have had a 40% chance of survival. That one person amongst thousands survived may or may not be impressive in and of itself. Either way, it does nothing to tell us the overall trend. For that we would need to see a larger data-set, preferably in a clinical setting. That would constitute meaningful data.
She was following the protocols in a book about nutritional cancer treatment. That makes her not just a single case. But the data hasn't been collated in a meaningful way. How many people have followed the advice in this book? How many had cancer? What cancers did they have? At what stage? Etc... Without that information you have nothing more than a collection of disparate anecdotes. That is not comparable to a meaningful clinical study.
Wark did something similar, Wark never had WM, so his experience is not comparable. Also, Wark had surgery, so again, his experience was not similar to Karen's.
and he has fifty videos of interviews with people who also did something similar He has fifty people who survived WM? That would be impressive! That would start to look pretty convincing. But of course he doesn't have any such thing. He has a collection of vague, detail-free anecdotes from people who had various different cancers and who may or may not have also pursued conventional therapies such as surgery. That doesn't tell us a damn thing, other than that Chris Wark has no understanding of statistics.
Sorry, your reasoning is just the usual prejudiced tripe. Saying sorry before insulting me doesn't make it any more gracious. And to think, you could have used that space to post a retraction of your previous support for those proven bearers of false witnesses Ty Bollinger and Mike Adams. Mutate and SurviveOn two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Granny Magda Member Posts: 2462 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 3.8 |
Interesting that you don't answer the most telling facts about Karen's story: the decrease in cancer in her blood with every three-month blood test when her entire treatment was diet; its return when she went off her diet for a couple of months, and the same pattern of decrease when she resumed it. Are actually lecturing me on dodging the point? You are the one who flounced out in a temper tantrum and has consistently refused to address the reality that you have been promoting frauds and lunatics. But really, what do you want me to say about this? It's interesting enough, somewhat promising even. But all it is is a single case study, poorly executed and presented in a inane format by a source with a history of abusing data. It might make an interesting starting point for some real research, but such research would be past Chris Wark's meagre abilities. Not that alt-med types are much interested in doing things properly. They prefer rhetoric to science.
The idea is that they will continue to be tested to see if it is working and if it isn't they will consider the standard options of chemo and radiation etc. Which you discourage at every turn by referring to life-saving medication as "poison". Which Wark discourages by spreading falsehoods about chemotherapy. Which Mike "crazy person" Adams discourages by spreading insane scare stories about chemotherapy. You can't have it both ways. Either chemo is 97% lethal or it is a valid option for WM patients. Which is it? Either "There is not a single cancer patient that has ever been cured by chemotherapy." or chemo is actually a viable treatment. Which is it?
I did not say the other examples were of Karen's same kind of cancer and you know I didn't, you just chose to ignore the implication that similar dietary protocols work for different kinds of cancer. I knew that, yes. I was being rhetorical, but with reason. Your notion that disparate types of cancer might be susceptible to the same treatment is naive. Different cancers have different causes and react differently to different treatments. Suggesting that a specific cancer is susceptible to dietary intervention is plausible. Trying to claim that essentially the same method will work against multiple cancers renders the claim deeply implausible. You talk about cancer is if it were one thing. It's not, it is actually much more complicated. You speak of chemotherapy as if it were one thing, when in fact there are many different forms of chemotherapy. Your approach, and indeed the approach of the alt-med movement as a whole, is over-simplistic and naive.
In a few cases no change other than adding large amounts of carrot juice, in other cases changing over to a completely plant-based diet, and variations of all kinds in between, These are the interventions you described as "similar"? They are not similar. The are wildly disparate and not directly comparable.
cutting back on meat and dairy and emphasizing plant foods makes a big difference. Your doctor could have told you that. That is no great insight.
Certainly the information is scattered and needs some refinement and controlled study, Well yes. And if the alt-med community ever decides to pull its finger out of its collective arse and actually do the work, I will be happy to see the results of their studies. Until then, anecdotes, misrepresented data and crazy-pants delusions are no substitute for hard data.
but your refusal to see the obvious implications of the information already available doesn't inspire trust to put it mildly. Your refusal to address your own errors in promoting dangerous frauds is also less than inspiring.
Oh maybe you can preach to the EvC choir effectively enough, but you're only convincing me you're just the usual EvC voice for the status quo. Please don't project your paranoia onto me. There is no choir here, just you and me having a conversation. Please understand, I do not object to the sources you cite out of some reflexive hate for alternative medicine. Rather, I dislike alt-med because of its consistent failure to provide evidence for its claims and for the way it places peoples health at risk by spreading dangerous misinformation. All I have tried to do in this thread is counter the wealth of misinformation from discredited sources that you have been posting. Mutate and Survive Edited by Granny Magda, : TypoOn two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Granny Magda Member Posts: 2462 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 3.8 |
Karen's description of her successful blood tests is the typical story among the people who tell their anecdotes and it ought to mean something, enough to spare us the blanket dismissal of anecdotal evidence. It's not just a "single case," it's quite typical of these reports. The main difference is her relapse and subsequent recovery, which makes the case even more compelling. I agree that her circumstances make for a relatively compelling anecdote. The problem is that you simply cannot extrapolate from a single case. There are too many potential confounding factors; not least the possibility that she is missing out important information. You say that she is not a single case, but that's not true. You just can't take fifty disparate anecdotes and smoosh them together. There are too many confounders; gender, general health and age of patients, type of cancer, stage of cancer, other illnesses that they might have, and - above all else - the vagueness and lack of detail that characterises these amateur accounts. With respect, I don't think you have any inkling as to how complicated a business it is creating and administering a statistically meaningful medical study.
I've agreed that true research needs to be done but I still see your attitude as reprehensible. Nobody's dying from this standard nutritional veggie/raw veggie protocol so you can stop the scare tactics. Yes YOUR scare tactics. No scare tactics necessary. I have already shown evidence that alternative medicine cause people to die of cancer quicker. Let me remind you;
quote: That study, of which you are so dismissive, was based on data from real patients with real cancers. Many of them died very real deaths. And the ones who chose to pursue alt-med died quicker. Those are real lives being shortened unnecessarily for the sake of quackery. I have to condemn that. As for your claim that "Nobody's dying from this standard nutritional veggie/raw veggie protocol", that is quite false. Of course the diet doesn't kill them directly; it's the untreated cancer that kills them. Case in point;
quote: Aniscough was one of these internet nutrition gurus that you're so impressed with. She chose to fight her cancer with nutrition, specifically the high volume veggie-juice regime of Gerson therapy. It didn't help. She didn't beat the odds, she died before her time thanks in no small part to her rejection of the conventional therapies that could have extended her life. I urge you to read about her case here, it serves as a cautionary tale. The Gerson protocol, cancer, and the death of Jess Ainscough, a.k.a. The Wellness Warrior | Science-Based Medicine Even more tragic is that Ainscough's mother, Sharyn Ainscough had previously died of cancer; an eminently treatable breast cancer that she chose to treat with the nutrition-woo of Gerson therapy. http://scienceblogs.com/...her-daughter-the-wellness-warrior Or there is the case of Bill Henderson, a prominent cancer-quack and author of various books promoting diet-based cancer treatments. He was promoted by such lumineries as Chris Wark and our old friend Ty Bollinger. He died of non-Hodgkins lymphoma, so perhaps his protocol wasn't all that he thought it was. http://scienceblogs.com/...other-cancer-quack-dies-of-cancer I could go on. There are also plenty of examples of people like Abraham Cherrix, who have embraced nutrition-based treatments only to see them fail and force them to resort to conventional therapies. You won't see them mentioned on sites like chrisbeatcancer though. They only report the good news stories, preferring to gloss over or down-play the failures. Oncologists are quite open about the fact that conventional therapies don't always work. Alt-med, by contrast, is in denial about it failings.
Many of the people have tried or intend to try the standard treatments if necessary, I haven't yet heard of one who flat-out refuses, they are hoping the diet change will do it and in these reports it does. You have heard of such a case. I have documented such cases in this thread. Jessica Ainscough is one example. The problem with this reasoning is that by the time the alt-med patient has realised that the diet isn't working, it may be too late. In cancer treatment it is vital to act fast, any delay can lead to increased mortality risk. Your approach would be fine for a minor chronic complaint (like migraines), but with an aggressive cancer, a few months could literally mean the difference between a treatable cancer and a death sentence.
Yes, there are differences in what people did WITHIN the basic range of diet changes. So what? You answer your own question;
Most of them who have gone to the furthest extremes in that direction don't know exactly which of their many treatments did the work, from the juices to the meal plan to the supplements to the odd stuff like "ozone therapy" and so on, Exactly right. There are too many confounders. For reliable data - and we're all agreed that we want reliable data - you need to compare like with like, use a control group, eliminate lead-time bias, ensure proper sample-group size... It's a complicated business, very far removed from a collection of sparse anecdotes.
so sure, sort all that out in research, and I hope someone will, Me too. But if you're waiting for the likes of Chris Wark to do such research, I wouldn't hold your breath. As it happens, some work has been done on this topic. It is widely accepted, for instance, that a high-fibre diet reduces the risk of bowel cancer and there are plenty of studies to back this up. Studies of nutritional supplements (including β-carotene, a compound present in carrots) however have failed to find any benefit against cancer and shown that they may even have negative effects.
but meanwhile we're talking about desperate people who want to cure their cancer That's precisely my concern. People with a cancer diagnosis are often scared witless and desperate. Some will do anything for a cure, no matter how implausible. Such people are extremely vulnerable to exploitation by dubious snake-oil salesmen like Bollinger and Wark. I don't want to see such people bilked. I don't want them sold on false hope or tricked into blow their life's savings on fantasy. I don't want to see them waste their last years on Earth being dragged into the weird personality cults of people like Adams. I just think that it's unethical to support these charlatans.
How would you propose such a study be done? They'd have to get groups of people suffering from the same kind of cancer, wouldn't they? For preference yes. It's perfectly possible to study multiple cancers at once, but the more consistent the data-set used, the greater the weight of the results.
They'd probably have to get them from doctors, wouldn't they? Yes. Studies should be carried out by qualified professionals with the necessary expertise.
Wouldn't it be intrusive, to propose a treatment to people already under treatment? Perhaps. But clinical trials usually use volunteers, or they pay their subjects. How intrusive it might be would depend upon the protocol being tested. Drinking 40Fl oz of carrot juice a day for example, shouldn't be too difficult, even for those taking chemotherapy. The more extreme regimens however, can be very demanding and might be more challenging to test.
Wouldn't doctors be disinclined to cooperate with such a study? Good God no! Why would they object? Despite the many bizarre conspiracy theories out there, doctors actually want to cure their patients. To suggest otherwise sounds overly cynical to say the least. It is true that pharmaceutical companies have no particular incentive to study a cure which they cannot copyright, but that's more of a problem with the healthcare market than with the actual science of the thing. Besides, there are plenty of institutions doing medical research other than big pharma.
How about patients in hospice who have given up anyway? That doesn't sound practical or entirely ethical. For most hospice patients, their stay is a short one. Nutritional therapies, if we are to take them at seriously, are going to take time. Too much time to be able to take effect so late in the game.
I don't think it's as easy as you claim to do such studies. And it would take tons of money to do it right. If I have given the impression that medical research is easy then I apologise. It is far from easy. It's extremely challenging and, as you rightly point out, costly. It must be done nonetheless. This is no higher bar than that which every drug coming to market must face. Drug manufacturers have to prove efficacy before bringing their products to market. I fail to see why any other sort of medical intervention should not be subject to the same standards of evidence, especially when so many alt-med vendors are so effective at monetising their wares.
And no, doctors do not tell anyone to avoid meat and dairy that I'm aware of, for any disease or for health in general. Well no, they don't warn against dairy, it's true. But that's because there's no clear evidence that dairy causes cancer. Feel free to produce some if you disagree. Meat on the other hand, they do warn you about, or at least they ought, since it's rather common knowledge. You must have heard it said that red meat is a potential risk-factor for bowel cancer? I thought everybody knew that. What is most certain is that highly processed meats, such as bacon, salami and ham very much are a causal factor in bowel cancer. This is from Cancer Research UK;
quote: More here (including plenty of stuff promoting a healthy diet rich in fruits and vegetables); Does having a healthy diet reduce my risk of cancer? | CRUK. So yeah, your doctor is quite likely to warn against excessive meat consumption. They won't tell you to give up all meat, or to drink gallons of carrot juice, but that's because real doctors tend to restrict themselves to what the evidence can support.
As Karen and others Wark has interviewed report, hospital food is the opposite of what the alt-med recommends. That is far from universal. Anyway, that's more of a problem with crappy healthcare policy than it is with medical science.
Why would you object to calling chemo "poison?" That's what it is. I never heard that denied by anyone. The idea is to kill the cancer with this poison. I object because it is propaganda. No-one denies that chemo is toxic; that why it's called cytotoxic chemotherapy. But to refer to it as "poison" is simply inflammatory scare-mongering. Why not refer to it as life-saving medicine? That would be at least as accurate. One could just as easily call amygdalin (a substance found in various fruit seeds and much much beloved by alt-med quacks) a poison. It does, after all release cyanide. But somehow, the alt-med cheerleaders never call amygdalin "poison". They call it "natural". Lots of things are poisonous. Aspirin is poisonous. Paracetamol is poisonous. They are used nonetheless because a) they are are effective and b) they are effective at a lower dose than is dangerous. Few drugs are without their side-effects and there is always a risk/reward analysis to be done. Referring to chemotherapy as "poison" however, focuses only upon the negative, implicitly ignoring the many millions of lives that have been saved.
I want to ask if there is even ONE case of spontaneous remission of cancer that you know of? Yup.
quote: Spontaneous breast cancer remission: A case report - PMC No mention of any alternative therapies, just an unexplained remission. It happens. And since you mention it, why yes, that could be an explanation for some of these cases. Certainly you cannot rule that out with anecdotes. For that you would need clinical trials. Mutate and Survive Edited by Granny Magda, : Thanks to Faith for hanging fire whilst I finished off this post.On two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Granny Magda Member Posts: 2462 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 3.8 |
We're not talking about any "miracle cure" so I don't know where you're getting that idea. Maybe he got it from the cranks whose work you've been promoting. From Ty Bollinger;
Is the sea cucumber the next miracle cure for cancer? Is the Sea Cucumber the Next Miracle Cure for Cancer? (video) From Mike Adams' Natural News.com
Black cumin: The secret miracle heal-all remedy Black cumin: The secret miracle heal-all remedy - NaturalNews.com From Chris Wark's chrisbeatcancer.com;
Ashlie’s breast cancer miracle and radical diet change Ashlie's breast cancer miracle and radical diet change From Joe Mercola;
One of my favorite sources of whey protein is Miracle Whey Protein Powder. http://shop.mercola.com/...e-whey-original-11-servings-1-bag Only $38.91 a pound! It's a miracle! Of course anyone can fall into the trap of hyperbole in promoting a cure, but it seems to me that alt-med quacks are really keen on it, even using it as a selling point for their snake-oil. So, yes, some people are talking about miracle cures. Which orifice they are using to talk out of I shall leave to your imagination. Mutate and SurviveOn two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage
|
|
|
Do Nothing Button
Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved
Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024