Holistic Doctors, and medicine

His expertise is questionable. At the moment he seems to be on a crusade to sue his detractors for defamation. Within the past few years he has filed such lawsuits against 40 people across the country and has not won any of them at trial.He lost a court case against a homeopathic manufacturer in the California Superior Court in 2001. In this case, Judge Haley Fromholz seriously called Barrett's qualifications into question when he appeared as an "expert witness." Here is an excerpt from the judge's statement: "As for his credential as an expert on FDA regulation of homeopathic drugs, the Court finds that Dr. Barrett lacks sufficient qualifications in this area. Expertise in FDA regulation suggests a knowledge of how the agency enforces federal statutes and the agency's own regulations. Dr. Barrett's purported legal and regulatory knowledge is not apparent. He is not a lawyer, although he claims he attended several semesters of correspondence law school. While Dr. Barrett appears to have had several past conversations with FDA representatives, these appear to have been sporadic, mainly at his own instigation, and principally for the purpose of gathering information for his various articles and Internet web-sites. He has never testified before any governmental panel or agency on issues relating to FDA regulation of drugs. Presumably his professional continuing education experiences are outdated given that he has not had a current medical licence in over seven years. For these reasons, there is no sound basis on which to consider Dr. Barrett qualified as an expert on the issues he was offered to address. Moreover, there was no real focus to his testimony with respect to any of the issues in this case associated with Defendants' products."He also brought to court a health care practitioner from Missouri who used chelation therapy on his heart patients. His patients got better, but Barrett attempted to have his license to practice medicine taken away from him. This case went to the Missouri Supreme Court, and Barrett lost. This is what one of the judges said: "One could argue that because chelation therapy is not accepted by mainstream medicine and is an off-label practice not approved by the FDA, it is therefore harmful and dangerous. If that were the board's position, the licensing statute would thwart advances in medical science. A dramatic example is the treatment of stomach ulcers, which were long thought to be caused by stress. In 1982, two Australians found the bacterium helicobacter pylori in the stomach linings of ulcer victims. Because helicobacter pylori is a bacterium, some physicians -- a minority to be sure -- began prescribing antibiotics to treat stomach ulcers as an infectious disease. The National Institutes of Health did not recognize antibiotic therapy until 1994; the FDA approved the first antibiotic for use in treating stomach ulcers in 1996; and the Centers for Disease Control began publicizing the treatment in 1997. Today’s physicians accept as fact that most stomach ulcers are primarily caused by helicobacter pylori bacteria infection and not by stress. (FN6) But, by the chronology of this discovery, if a physician in the late 1980s or early 1990s had treated ulcers with antibiotics, that treatment would have been 'negligent' as the board in this case interprets that term because inappropriate use of antibiotics can be dangerous."Little progress would be made if people weren't willing to think outside the box. Sometimes that might mean personally being willing to use a treatment that hasn't undergone the "rigorous scientific testing" of FDA-approved drugs, with the hope that in the near future these tests will take place as the popularity of the treatment increases and mainstream medicine begins to realise how useful it is. If you are a skeptic them presumably you will wait for that day. I personally see no reason to, if there are other kinds of evidence that the treatment is sound. I know that I will not come to any harm by using things that are natural to the body such as nutritious food, good-quality vitamins, and fish oil. You have to be more careful with herbs as they are not native to the body and are used more medicinally, though when used with the proper expertise they can be very beneficial.You said: I assume this is a generalisation. How were these millions of lives saved? Modern medicine knows some amazing things about putting people back together when they are injured. It can perform some amazing feats of surgery. And yes, sometimes drugs can save lives. But how many drugs have actually CURED anyone? This is what naturopathic medicine aims to do: cure, not treat the symptoms.Back to Stephen Barrett. Yes, one of my sources (Bolen) was wrong. Barret allowed his license to lapse; he was not de-licensed. He still failed the certification exam that he took, and he knows little about the things he is criticising on his website. I will talk about vitamin C in more detail further on. It depends on what substance you are looking at. Various concoctions might pose some danger to people. I don't buy these. My ND reads the medical literature and researches each product that she recommends, and I often go with what she says, though I also know that if you are taking things which are native to the body they pose little to no risk. A few vitamins, like our vitamin A here, have a toxicity threshold, but most of them don't seem to, and have been safely given in megadoses by physicians.In "Vitamin Deaths: Where are the Bodies?", Andrew Saul at http://www.doctoryourself.com/vitsafety.html writes, "Over a 23-year period, vitamins have been connected with the deaths of a total of TEN people in the US. Poison control statistics confirm that more Americans die each year from eating soap than from taking vitamins . . . In 16 of those 23 years, AAPCC reports that there was not one single death due to vitamins."Let's take vitamin C then. This is what I was referring to in my previous post. Presumably you read my request to Nator not to cite any studies that used less than the megadoses of vitamin C that Linus Pauling used. Yet the links you both have given me did just that. All I ask is that you look thoroughly into what you are linking to, because I then had to do the work myself to get the info that shows that this study actually proves nothing about vitamin C. You can see for yourself here http://findarticles.com/..._m0841/is_n3_v28/ai_14071547/pg_1 that this study did not use megadoses at all. There were 3 subgroups and Enstrom estimates that their daily vitamin C intake was 30mg, 150mg, and 300mg respectively. The first group will develop scurvy if they haven't done already. The next two groups will fall under Pauling's definition of subclinical scurvy. Whatever this study claims to show about vitamin C is meaningless. Pauling used many GRAMS and his studies are there for people to research if they care to do so; but as I said, one after the other uses much less of the vitmain than Pauling's studies used. Why this is, by ignorance or design, one can perhaps only speculate.Furthermore, regarding the link to this abstract you gave me. People often cite studies based only on titles or abstracts. And they are easy for click-and-linkers to spot and use. If you read the entire article you will often find that the title and conclusion are not supported by the data. An abstract and conclusion are allowed to be merely a statement from the authors. They need not be accurate. Something to bear in mind maybe.Finaly, you said: Yes, I do know, though I don't like the term "panic disorder." And indeed, adrenal overload is part of a panic attack. I am in no doubt myself that this is not the problem with me, but if you want my explanation I'll give it. I never had any problems of this kind until after I stopped my drug. You have probably guessed that it was an antidepressant. Many people are prescribed these drugs now and I don't fear any stigma here from talking about it. When I ceased the drug, these problems developed, among others. They flare up when my nervous system is overstimulated from things like: loud noises, crowds, too much TV, too much computer (LOL), arguing with people (again LOL -- this conversation is becoming hazardous to my health), reading a book for too long a period, exercising at more than a walk (I used to do a heavy workout at the gym before the drug with no trouble), and unfortunately a full work day. A year ago I got a job where I worked 4 full days a week and it made me very ill; I had to quit. I am once again trying to ease back in but I start feeling sick after lunch, I'm exhausted and jittery when I get home, and I wake in the middle of the night with my heart racing and have trouble getting back to sleep. This eases when I rest for a few days. In the meantime the relora helps a lot, and so does the Bach Cherry Plum. It's actually best to avoid the overstimulation in the first place, but that can't always happen. This is what I was telling me GP about when he shook his head and said he'd never heard of it happening. My ND is very familiar with it as an effect of these drugs, however, and she knows how to treat it, though it can take a long time to heal. It's damage to the adrenals and the CNS. My GP listens to the companies that make these drugs. He has little interest in the side effects they produce. He was never interested in monitoring me on the drug, and never heard about what I went through in discontinuing it until I mentioned it a year later when I was seeing him for something else. I suspect many others get similar adrenal problems to me but the problems go away fairly quickly, or they don't recognise them for what they are, or they do what i did and say to hell with the ignorant GP, I'm going to find someone who really can help me.

You're still aren't understanding the patent process.Methods can be patented because they are invented by man. Your two examples are methods being patented. I haven't disagreed with this. Patents are for that which is manmade.The article concerning the mice deals with modified mice. The statement that Canada allows single-celled organisms, such as yeasts and bacteria, and GM crops to be patented. in the context of the article would mean those items are modified. You would need to show that they or actually the United States allows unmodified organisms to be patented.A synthetic drug is manmade, therefore it can be patented. We cannot patent the vitamin C in an orange. We can patent the process of extraction, but not the vitamin C itself.A genetically altered or hybrid (created by man) soybean can be patented; but species that were not developed by man cannot.Do you understand the difference yet?

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If the molecular structure is the same (as it is with vitamin C, vitamin A, vitamin E, etc.), it is the same substance.

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I did read it, thank you.Vitamin E How well the body absorbs or makes use of the synthetic vs the natural is also a factor. Will one build up in body and the other one not. I don't see that your statement can really be considered all encompassing. The importance is how they function with our bodies, not that they look the same and behave the same in a lab.As I understand it the underlying point of some CAM approaches today is about helping the body to heal itself. Looking at how our biological functions interact and dealing accordingly. Once we get rid of the quackery and the rivalry hopefully our health care can benefit from what is learned.

Nator you said: OK we're talking about a whole website. I've spent long, exhausting hours for what amounts to probably no sane reason, doing research for the conversations I am having here. My own areas of knowledge lie mainly in vitamins, nutrition, and psychotropic medications. Would you like to pick one of those areas on his website and ask me about it? If I'm going to do more research I would prefer to narrow the topic. Referring to what I said to Molbiogirl above, while I enjoy talking on internet forums, I've been putting in too many computer hours and it is raising my cortisol. It's unpleasant and perhaps a stupid thing for me to do, but I was keen to talk somewhere on this forum.You said: If therein lies the whole truth, then I would not be developing cortisol jitters at the computer, I'd be able to exercise at the gym again, and I wouldn't have any trouble going out to work. I know other people who have suffered far worse from these drugs. Tardive dyskinesia. Neuralgia so severe in the feet that walking is impossible. Suicidal and homicidal ideation. I know 2 people who successfully sued Glaxo for the damage that their drug Paxil did to them. There have been other court cases about these kinds of meds, in the past and the present. Lilly has had a lot of trouble regarding Prozac and suicide and they've had to pay out a lot of money. Also, if you look into the details about school shootings in the US in the past few decades, you will find that most of the perpetrators were on some kind of psychotropic drug. You could of course say that they were mentally ill to begin with, which is why they were on the drugs, and the mental illness might have caused them to become homicidal. I would say look more deeply. Guns have been readily available to Americans for hundreds of years, yet it is only in recent years that these shootings have taken place. They mirror the upward trend in prescriptions of psychotropic drugs. I am also aware of the specific details in some of these cases, which strongly suggest that it was the drugs that caused the youngsters to become homicidal. This is not the place to go into it further, but my point is that these are drugs which have received FDA approval, about which you can find many of those "professional scientific papers," and which Barrett would recommend you take, rather than trying the "woo-woo naturopathic" approach. Scientific papers have their place; but if you gave me the ones about any psychotropic drug, I would use them as toilet paper. My naturopath. She has been tracking Barrett for years. I'm quite aware that this doesn't stand up as evidence for anyone here, but I haven't been able to find any links yet that give these kinds of details about him. I will ask my ND; but in the meantime, I will simply ask this: Where does a retired psychiatrist get the money to fund all those lawsuits and legal bills? In the court case Barrett vs. Koren (2005), under cross-examination by trial lawyer Carlos Negrete, Barrett admitted that he failed the certification exam. And your source of evidence is Barrett's own CV from his website??But yes, I agree that it probably makes no difference what I say about Barrett here. I'm happy to discuss an aspect of his website with you, as I mentioned above, though the level of detail and research I'm willing to engage in will probably reflect the interest here, which seems to be zero for any form of alternative medicine, and plenty for debate for its own sake. Of course I don't seriously believe in this strawman. However, there is plenty of evidence that pharmaceuticals cover up studies and trials that show their drugs in a negative light. If they were genuinely interested in the health of the people taking those drugs then why don't they come clean without being forced to do so in court? And why do they spend billions of dollars on marketing their drugs on the TV? They want you to think you've got a disease and go to your doctor and ask for that drug. Again, surely this isn't in the best interests of the patients. Their representatives market to GPs directly all the time, and give them gifts and take them out for meals, to try to ensure the numbers of prescriptions for their drugs go up. Most of the information that doctors have about drugs comes from the pharmaceutical companies. Most mainstream doctors do not have an interest in taking anything other than a drug-centered approach to treatment, no matter whether it is actually the most suitable treatment, because of the influence of the pharmaceutical industry. They have a hand in GP's careers right from the beginning; they are heavily involved in training in medical schools, as I believe Purple said here. You might think this is OK if drugs really are the answer for so many ills but they don't HAVE TO BE. Like I said, how many things do they actually cure?On the other hand, I'm well aware that vitamins and herbs are marketed and sold. Occasionally the manufacturers of a pseudo-product prey on people's gullibility and I agree that these practices need to be exposed. But there are also a lot of high-quality supplements out there that help people. They are not marketed in the way that pharmaceuticals are; GPs don't have reps from vitamin companies knocking on their doors and asking them out to a steak and lobster lunch, or a "conference" in Hawaii. In fact, US law makes it difficult for manufacturers of supplements to be able to give information about why they believe their products to be helpful, as you can read here: http://www.newstarget.com/z019314.htmlOne other point to add here is that when I mention vitamins, I add the caveat "high quality." There are certainly some ripoff merchants who don't care what you're ingesting in their little capsules. That's why you've got to read labels and study what it is you're wanting to buy. Some vitamins contain unhealthy ingredients like hydrogenated vegetable oil and hydrolyzed protein. Some contain raw soy. Some are synthetic versions of the vitamins, rather than natural versions, and often the synthetic versions are ineffective or harmful (for example vitamin D2 and dl-alpha-tocopherol, vitamin E). Some, especially cheap store-bought vitamins, have low bioavailability. You simply have to do your research to know what the best products are to buy, but this holds true for any consumer product.You go on to talk about statistics of the side effects of pharmaceuticals and herbs. As I said to Molbiogirl, my ND heads her list with diet and things that are natural to the body like vitamins and fish oil. These alone can produce healing in many cases and there are no side effects or deaths involved. Herbs would be a little further down the list because they tend to be a medicinal substance that the body does not recognise as being native to it. I trust my ND's advice about these and do not take any without her recommendation, or thorough research of my own. I'm not against statistics of users of herbs being monitored, as long as that does not mean restricting people's right to sell or use genuine ones. You did not answer my question, however, of why people here are so focused on things like deaths from herbs. I take it the deaths from pharmaceuticals are OK are they, just par for the course? Let's hope you yourself never have to make a decision about whether or not to take a drug that could seriously harm your health. If you work on the sorts of methods of prevention that Buzsaw outlined, this may never have to be the case. I mentioned Dr. mercola here for starters but you had a good laugh about that. How long were you there, 30 seconds? I recommend any books by Linus Pauling. I recommend Peter Breggin as an alternative for people who advocate psychotropic drugs. Breggin.com | Home I recommend anything by Dr. Abram Hoffer, who has been practicing for years and who is known for treating schizophrenia with niacin and vitamin C. He is the editor of the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, which you can find here, Page not found – OrthoMed.org and a site with more general orthomolecular information is here Welcome To Orthomolecular.org This is a good one for news on drugs and big pharma Page not found – Alliance for Human Research Protection And this is a good book on using naturopathy and environmental medicine to treat depression, though the methods in it could be applied to any number of ailments: Depression Cured at Last by Sherry A. Rogers, MD.The orthomolecular sites probably come closest to meeting your definition of science-based (unless you want to read a book), in that they contain some specialised information on studies. I don't tend to read scientific papers, I am not a scientist, but my ND is knowledgeable about them and occasionally she posts papers on her list. I'm not sure what else you want from me. I could give more links but I doubt if you'd be interested in them. I'm comfortable with what I know and what I do and I don't personally feel that the only proof for any of it lies in scientific papers. If you were genuinely interested in educating yourself about naturopathy, as opposed to taking Barrett's word as law, then you have the intelligence to do this.You said, regarding vitamin C and the common cold and cancer: As I've said in my post to Molbiogirl, people aren't using the amounts that Pauling used. He also was not aware of the key role that diet plays in health and healing; he recommended a fairly good dietary regime, but it wouldn't have had the health benefits of something like the Paleolithic Diet. Even so, the links you gave from Barrett's site only show again that neither he nor you really know much about Pauling or what he did, and it helps to know about a subject before you criticise it.Link #1: Ascorbic acid for the common cold. None of the methods employed would prevent a cold, though they might go some way toward reducing the frequency of colds. And once you have a cold, 3g daily doesn't cut it.Once you get a cold, and you intend to use vitamin C to head it off, you need to start taking it to bowel tolerance as soon as you feel the first tickle in your throat, or any other symptom. It's important to do this as early as possible. Bowel tolerance means that you have a loose stool. You take whatever dose is required hourly to reach this, and then drop your dosage just a lttle below it once you've had the loose stool. Continue to do this for two or three days, then drop the dosage gradually. You could find that you are taking two or more grams per hour. Pauling recommended this. My ND recommends this. I've tried it and it's worked for me. It's a bit of a pain having to take something on the hour though, and I prefer putting colloidal silver in my neti pot to head off a cold instead because that works too.Link #2: vitamin C and advanced cancer. Firstly, it has to be said that if cancer is advanced, which was the basis of this study, then even vitamin C is likely not going to be a big help. You need to use treatments like this before the person is knocking at death's door -- and why wouldn't you, if the alternative was chemotherapy? Pauling did a lot of work in this area and he wrote a book about it.Secondly, the patients received 10g of vitamin C a day. This abstract implies that the vitamin was given orally, as it says one group received a "comparably flavoured lactose placebo." Again, this study was doomed from the start. 10g of vitamin C a day is what Pauling recommended for HEALTHY people. I myself take 9. Pauling gave over 100g per day to cancer patients, and it was given intravenously, in which form it is much more efficiently absorbed. Why didn't the people who set this study up know this? It's a waste of money and people's time, the patients didn't get better, and Barrett can trumpet that Pauling was wrong about vitamin C.Link #3: The abstract doesn't even say how much vitamin C was given. I don't think it's too unrealistic to assume that vitamin C was not given to bowel tolerance to stop the cold, or even that a proper megadose was given. Until you can give me the specifics, I can't count this as evidence for anything.For goodness sake, just read How to Live Longer and Feel Better and find out what Pauling did and what he said about it. It's a wonderful mix of science and personal experience, and I found it a very engaging read.you said: Where did you hear this? And have you tried it? As I said, I take 9g a day. I used to take less but I found that the frequency of my colds diminished markedly when I got to that amount. My daughter, who is 4, is currently taking 6g a day in divided doses because she's been a little snuffly. She hasn't actually had a bad cold, or any other kind of virus or infection, since I started giving her vitamin C. If someone is getting an upset stomach and diarrhoea at 2g, then the following options should be considered: that their body is not used to it and they need to introduce the vitamin more gradually; that the particular supplement form of ascorbic acid they are taking does not agree with them and they should try another; or that they should divide the dosage up throughout the day. Again, there are more specifics in Pauling's book.You asked me about colloidal minerals. Is that what you want me to discuss from Barrett's website? This is getting pretty time-consuming and I'd like to try to narrow the field of discussion.Your question about my statement regarding cortisol and herbs is addressed in my post to Molbiogirl.Can I just say, finally, that if you pride yourself on your scientific methods, why don't you try a naturopathic method that is perfectly safe, and just see for yourself? I suggest diet. Give yourself 2 weeks on the Paleolithic Diet. You'd have to be prepared at first to feel worse, while your body adjusts, but be patient and see. I doubt if anyone here would sincerely take me up on that offer, but what if you found that you actually felt a lot better? It's very easy to sit at your computer and criticise things. Sometimes the answer to "How do I know if it really works" might be as simple as "Try it and see for yourself."

The question remains, was the drug largely effective and harmless? A case study of one is useless. If you were the only person negatively affected and 2 billion peoples lives were saved...I'd say it was largely effective and harmless. If other people were also affected, did they do better or worse than you in alleviating symptoms if they didn't visit an ND? The question is: Does she help fix the damage allopathic medicine has wrought on them more than say, nothing or consulting a doctor and following their advice? Then your GP is an ass. My GP believes me when I tell him about things. It depends how you define allopathic. If you mean it to mean it to mean "Conventional Medicine" then very much yes. For instance, removing an appendix which has inflamed. It might reduce swelling using anti-inflammatories to prevent pressure on a certain organ which is causing symptoms. Whether or not actual allopathy cures things though is irrelevant - conventional medicine certainly does. Whereas conventional medicine shows evidence that this is trivially true. Yes, obviously. Conventional medicine does this too. I was diagnosed as very probably being allergic to alcohol and was advised to drink only in moderation (ie., don't get drunk). By a medical doctor, no less (in fact several of them). You are quite right - many drugs used for mental health problems don't cure mental health problems and nobody pretends they do. They do, however, help restore normal brain chemistry so the person is able to function. If the problem is psychological in nature, these drugs will allow the person to function well enough to work through the psychological problems with psychologist or counsellor.There are mental health problems that can be cured, and they are. As does conventional medicine. That underlying problem might be physical or psychological. Both can be treated, and even cured. Indeed. And no doubt some people can get off drugs, not consult a naturopath, and be fine. Which is more effective? Some people can get off active drugs, take a placebo and remain fine. What's more effective a real naturopathic remedy, or a placebo in these cases?I've never heard of a doctor prescribing ten types of meds as initial treatment for a mental illness so it must be pretty severe. I know people with very bad mental illnesses and they don't need that many medications. Of course, it could be that the doctor is a corrupt bastard. That's a problem with a private system though, not with the medicine - surely? My loved ones have suffered severe illnesses. And doctors have made them better, and guided them through any necessary lifestyle changes they might need to make. I hope if the disease is severe you wouldn't run to a naturopath, or advise others to do likewise.

Hi LindaLou,When offered a choice of two treatments, one that emerged from scientific research and was tested in double blind studies, the other based upon anecdote, word of mouth, marketing claims, etc., which would you choose?This is the central question. It concerns how we make sure that any knowledge we accept as likely true actually corresponds to the real world. Research employing scientific methodologies is the most effective approach we know to learning how things work in the real world.Traditional medicine is simply the best approach we have to treating illness and accident. It isn't perfect, it's simply the best we have, and that's because it employs scientific methodologies. At best you can say the claims of alternative medicine are scientifically unverified, at worst that they're potentially dangerous, especially if they delay legitimate medical treatment.To reject traditional medicine in favor of alternative medicine is to believe that there are legitimate approaches to learning about the real world that are not scientific. The human history of expanding knowledge has not uncovered any such alternative.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Grammar.

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Yes, let's put our faith in the clinical trials that say this drug is largely effective and harmless. My doctor certainly thought so. He wasn't the only doctor to think this either. That drug ended up nearly destroying my life. It is a year and a half since I stopped taking it and I am still experiencing many of the symptoms I had initially upon discontinuation, though with the help of my ND and her diet and supplement regime, they are gradually lessening.

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Another logical fallacy.Just because the conventional drug you were taking damaged you doesn't mean that pseudoscientific alternative health methods are any less pseudoscientific.Your bad experience with one drug in no way negates the overall enormous success of the scientific method, and in no way lends validity to Naturopathy or any other Alt. method.Like you advised earlier, "don't throw the baby out with the bathwater".Also, how do you know that the herbs you are taking are actually helping, or if you would have just gotten gradually better anyway, without them?

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My ND works with thousands of others who took my drug or a similar one, and who have experienced symptoms similar to mine. They go to her to help fix the damage that allopathic medicine wrought on them. I could share some horror stories about what these people have been through. My own GP doesn't believe me when I tell him about my symptoms because "this cannot be."

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Well, what are those sysmptoms, and can they be explained without reference to that drug? I mean, do you have blood tests or biopsies or some other test result that actually show the problem?Also, the number of people your ND treats has no bearing on the validity of the treatments. Millions of people believe in Astrology, too, but it is pure pseudoscience.

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My ND, however, asked me why I am actually doing this. She considers it to be a waste of energy, when I could be giving this info to people who are actually open to it and want to use it.

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What could be more important than discussing if certain healthcare practices are based in reality or are pseaudoscience?I am sure that your ND would prefer you put energy into recruiting people already inclined to believe in Naturopathy without questioning it. Perhaps your ND is a bit afraid that you might learn something about Naturopathy and science that might turn you away from her practice, thus depriving her of income.I am perfectly open to any and all high quality scientific evidence that you can produce.

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I see no evidence here that the skeptics have any interest in actually educating themselves about the topics at hand.

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If you believe we are lacking information, then please provide it. I have been reading about alternative health practices for about 10 years now, but I am sure I have much to learn.Now, I have a question for you. How much skeptical information have you read regarding Alt Health? How many scientific papers have you tried to look up and read regarding the herbal drugs and practices your ND prescribes?

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There is much mouse-clicking and link-making but it's obvious to me that the links are often not thoroughly investigated.

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Then please be specific. You have been making many objections, but they are not accompanied by any specifics.

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I'm finding it a little irritating that I can give info straight from this source but am dealing with people who want to dismiss him out of hand using links from a second party like Stephen Barrett. If you want to let Mr. Barrett do your thinking for you that is your choice, but don't consider yourself to be getting an unbiased or accurate picture of anything from him.

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But what if the source is wrong? Just becasue Pauling put it in a book doesn't mean that all those other research papers Dr. Barrett cites are invalidated.It is the primary scientific research that Dr. Barrett references that influences me, not Dr. Barrett himself.You are welcome to provide your own references to the primary research if you think Dr. Barrett has it wrong.Again, we know that you think that Dr. Barrett is biased and inaccurate, but you have thus far not demonstrated that he is, by citing scientific research that contradicts his claims. Until you actually decide to discuss specific claims with real counterevidence, all you are doing is saying, over and over, "Don't listen to Dr. Barrett. I don't like what he says about stuff I believe in."

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If it reassures you that his brand of science and medicine are correct and chime nicely with your views,

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His "brand" of science? I was unaware that there are different "brands" of science. What other kinds are there?

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then indeed it's probably a waste of energy for me to try to convince anyone otherwise. I was never under any illusions that that might be the case here anyway.

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So, you are going to quit before you've even tried?LindaLou, I'll ask you to recall your initial posts in this forum, and how you expressed admiration at the level of scientific expertise. That expertise and way of thinking about claims applies not only to Creationism, but to other places in life where scientific investigation is useful, in fact crucial, such as in healthcare. I will ask you to step outside yourself an observe what your reaction has been when that very same expertise and way of thinking about claims you admired at first is turned upon some beliefs you hold dear, yet don't seem to be based in fact.Where once you admired, now you reject. Why do you think that is? Are we acting differently towards you, or are we simply treating your claims the same as we do any other?

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What are we actually doing by discussing this, just trying to score points off each other?

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Confronting pseudoscience whenever I encounter it is the reason I am discussing this.

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I asked if anyone knows how allopathic medicine cures anything, apart from with antibiotics.

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Er, vaccines have had an enormous impact on childhood mortality. The study of sanitation and nutrition has also had a great effect upon health and wellness. Understanding of genetics has led to improvements in the treatment and prevention of many diseases.The thing I think you are missing here is "allopathic" medicine isn't a single method. Basically, anything that can be demonstrated to work by way of the scientific method becomes incorporated into conventional medical practice. That includes things like nutrition, physical therapy, exercise, emotional health, etc.While Naturopathy does incorporate some science-based information, it is also mired in a lot of magical thinking and pseudoscience. I am aware of no requirement that any Naturopathic treatment must demonstrate it's efficacy and safety, so of course, many haven't been tested.It is that lack of rigor and that reliance upon magical, mystical thinking that should be confronted for what it is.Your anger towards conventional medicine doesn't make Alternative practices any more valid.

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Yes docs can fix a broken leg or do an organ transplant. I have no problem with seeing them for that. However, I have no interest in using medications to alleviate symptoms when I can instead get at the root causes of those symptoms, which is often achieved by knowledgeable use of diet and supplements.

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What diseases that conventional medicine doesn't think can be cured with diet and supplements have, in fact, been cured in this way? Scientific evidence if possible, please. Those diseases, like scurvy, that conventional medicine discovered, are not what I am after here.For example, how can Tay Sachs Disease be cured by diet and supplements?

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Naturopathy believes that the body can usually heal itself, given the right materials.

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What is the emprirical basis for that belief?

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A poor environment, toxins outside and inside the body, and poor nutrition can all be catalysts for disease.

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Sure, but we don't need Naturopaths to tell us that. Conventional medicine has known that for a long time. Microorganisms are also a leading cause of disease.

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Allopathic medicine overwhelmingly treats the symptoms rather than their causes. Case in point, various kinds of mental illness. Usually you get a drug for these from your doc. No one should be pretending that these drugs actually cure anything.

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Most mental health patients are not treated only with drugs, since the very real biological basis for many mental illnesses is still not the only factor in mental illness. Environment also plays a role, and that's why talk therapy is usually reccommended. And many that are only treated with drugs alone are done so by patient choice.

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Naturopathy sees mental illness as a symptom of an underlying problem.

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What underlying problem? What is the evidence for this opinion?

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I have first-hand experience of seeing quite a number of people come off psychotropic drugs, and stay off them for years, using naturopathic methods. Sometimes their own docs had them drugged up on 10 or more meds at a time initially. That was their idea of "treatment."

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I could list many people who went off of their meds and subsequently killed themselves.

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It is up to you whether you'd like to learn more about this, or whether you dismiss it as meaningless anecdotal evidence.

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LL, I have repeatedly asked you for more information. So far, all you have done is made claims and told personal anecdotes. Those are not convincing.

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I sincerely hope that you or your loved ones will not have to suffer severe illness before you consider other possibilities outside of conventional medicine.

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Wow, would you listen to yourself just there? Change a few words and you could be a religious missionary trying to scare me into converting.And just how is it that you seem to know or think that I or my loved ones haven't been confronted by serious illness?Edited by nator, : No reason given.

You still don't understand, PD.There is no difference between "synthetic" vitamin C and the vitamin C in an orange. No difference. At all. Period.Your bare assertion to the contrary makes no sense.The paper that you read makes the point quite clearly.They are THE SAME.btw.The bioavailability of manmade vitamins is THE SAME as those that are not manmade. That is also quite clear in the paper.If you are going to continue to insist that manmade vitamins are somehow different from natural vitamins, you need to back up your claim. A pitbull is a modified dog.Is it manmade?

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They flare up when my nervous system is overstimulated from things like: loud noises, crowds, too much TV, too much computer (LOL), arguing with people (again LOL -- this conversation is becoming hazardous to my health), reading a book for too long a period, exercising at more than a walk (I used to do a heavy workout at the gym before the drug with no trouble), and unfortunately a full work day. A year ago I got a job where I worked 4 full days a week and it made me very ill; I had to quit. I am once again trying to ease back in but I start feeling sick after lunch, I'm exhausted and jittery when I get home, and I wake in the middle of the night with my heart racing and have trouble getting back to sleep. This eases when I rest for a few days.

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With all due respect, how do you know that the drug has caused all of this and that you aren't just suffering from an emotional disorder that is unrelated to the drug? Or, could you just be a hypochondriac?I mean, stress and anxiety produces cortisol, right? Edited by nator, : No reason given.

Hi Modulous, I'll pick up on a few of your points here.You said: Well yes, but this isn't the case with psychotropic drugs. What happened to me isn't an oddity. And not so many people find help from these drugs. Several studies, including the National Institutes of Health-funded STAR*D trial (Sequenced Treatment Alternatives to Relieve Depression), have shown complete remission rates as low as 7%. Most studies show that antidepressants have only a marginal efficacy above placebo. And it's easy to manipulate scientific studies when the company conducting them has an interest in getting a certain result.Also, few people report side effects for a variety of reasons. I can dig around for a source for this if you want but I know I've read about it several times. Sexual side effects themselves were at first said to be rare on ADs, but I've seen estimates from more recent articles that put their occurrence as high as 80%. That's an impossible question. All I am able to give is anecdotal evidence. People join my ND's list all the time who have been off the drugs for months or even years and have never got well. They join the list and they start to get well. If these people saw their GPs it is likely that they would have been told that they were still mentally ill and needed to continue to take their drugs, or that they'd developed a new disorder for which a different drug was required, or that they had some other kind of illness and needed to get tests done. I don't object to tests being done. I'd like someone to do them on me so that there would be quantifiable evidence of the damage that's been done to my body from that drug. But things don't happen that way unfortunately. I persuaded my doctor to do some blood tests at one point but they were all normal. Damage to the CNS isn't going to show up in the blood.You mentioned that conventional medicine can "cure" by removing an inflamed appendix. I did say in one of my posts here that modern medicine can perform some amazing feats of surgery. I'd go to the hospital if I had a broken leg. And some drugs can be life-saving. Maybe I should clarify; What do MEDICATIONS, apart from antibiotics, cure?You said, about ADs again: You've been listening to the media and the brainwashed GPs. No psychotropic med "restores" normal brain function. They create brain abormalities and physiological imbalances that didn't previously exist. Check out what Dr. Breggin says about this. I will link to his site again: Breggin.com | HomeAlso, I know plenty of people who never functioned "well enough" to talk to a counsellor (if one is even offered; I can't talk to one on the NHS here). One of the people I know who successfully sued Glaxo tried to kill herself on Paxil, and tried to kill her husband with a knife. She didn't have a history of psychosis before she took the drug, and has not had any such episode since.You ask again, which is more effective, naturopathy or allopathic medicine? I'd say it depends. I feel a lot better now that I am on the Paleo diet and supplements. If I start having sugar or things with flour in them, my body now reacts by giving me stomach cramps, headache, depression, quite a number of things. It isn't used to those anymore and doesn't want them. And I love the calmness I experience from taking extra magnesium. I also know that by taking fish oil, I am helping to restore my body's natural EFA balance. These things will factor into my health not only now, but for years to come.My ND is also a neurologist. I feel I'm getting the best of all worlds with her. She has expertise in many fields. This is also why she knows about the effects of psychotropic drugs in the body and brain, and why she is so keen to help people who have been damaged by them. She sees others in her profession doing heinous things and making people's lives miserable.Most of this is anecdotal, but it suffices for me. It's probably not enough to convince any skeptics here but maybe I've at least given a little food for thought in my posts.Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.

Please provide your source. Heresay is notoriously unreliable. As we can see from your previous posts (re: Dr. Barrett's license). Vaccinations alone have saved millions. C'mon, Lindalou. I am a PhD candidate in Biochemistry. I assure you. I read papers. And I make a point of reading everything I post.I suggest you try reading a few. The links you have provided so far are to marketing sites. No. It doesn't. OTC alternaremedies are not regulated and thus statistics for death/injury are not kept.Your link re: vitamins doesn't pan out either.From the AAPCC site:

Yes, of course, and that's the key issue. Anecdote is a known unreliable approach to figuring out what's actually true about the real world. I don't think personal accusations like this should be part of the discussion. We should focus on facts, not personal speculations about the people we're debating with. If Dr. Breggin's science is good, then it will persuade the scientific community because it reveals accurate information about the real world. Dr. Breggin may wish to publish in more mainstream journals. Many of his recent papers appear in Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry, which he himself founded, or in Ethical Human Sciences and Services, of which he's editor-in-chief. Anecdote should not be sufficient to convince anyone about anything as subjective as the efficacy of medical interventions. Independent of the correctness of your claims, don't you think that they should be supported by research and human studies before being accepted? And don't you find the lack of interest in funding and providing this research support telling, given that it would provide alternative medicine the scientific weapons it needs to really stick it to the traditional medical community they so often criticize?--PercyEdited by Percy, : Remove EFA comment.

OK, I'm happy to call it a day here. I've spent five or six hours on the computer today, and replying to all the posts here would require that much and more. I owe it to myself to go out and live a bit.I can't play the logic game very well yet, and I'm not going to be able to demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt here that my experiences are valid, or that my ND has helped anyone, or for that matter that anything I've claimed is absolutely true. I am not capable of giving the sort of evidence here people want. My ND probably is, she's been to med school and she keeps up with current scientific papers.I'm glad I found her because I believe she has helped me, and many others immensely. I've seen for myself what happens when I'm on the Paleo Diet, I don't need to back it up for myself with scientific studies. That may satisfy no one here but it does me. I suppose many creationists end up saying this as well. Never mind.I'm going to stick with the Poltergeist topic, and with lurking in the science areas where I might be able to learn something. I don't think debating like this is really for me, I'd rather have a friendly chat with someone.

So the question remains, was the drug largely effective and harmless? Do you have the figures on it, at all? Yes, one can manipulate scientific studies. Let's talk about STAR*D. They did four levels of treatment, and almost 70% of patients that continued on to all four levels became symptom-free. It concluded that different treatment strategies worked for different people, and that more research should be carried out.

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The QIDS-SR(16) remission rates were 36.8%, 30.6%, 13.7%, and 13.0% for the first, second, third, and fourth acute treatment steps, respectively. The overall cumulative remission rate was 67%. Overall, those who required more treatment steps had higher relapse rates during the naturalistic follow-up phase. In addition, lower relapse rates were found among participants who were in remission at follow-up entry than for those who were not after the first three treatment steps. CONCLUSIONS: When more treatment steps are required, lower acute remission rates (especially in the third and fourth treatment steps) and higher relapse rates during the follow-up phase are to be expected. Studies to identify the best multistep treatment sequences for individual patients and the development of more broadly effective treatments are needed.

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So, one drug might have a remission of 7% for some people. The study shows that the correct course of action is move to 'the next step' and that we should do research to help ensure we get the right people one right treatment as soon as possible. I'd agree with all of that, and it certainly doesn't seem to support your overall position that conventional treatment is ineffective. And I know people who have reported likewise to me. And I asked them which they preferred, no libido and no depression or libido and depression. Turns out they prefer the former. As would I. Only because the naturopathy industry doesn't want to pay the money to do the study to find out of the job that pays their bills is actually worth it to the people who are getting treated. We agree that conflicts of interest are not good, I assume you agree likewise with the naturos as well as the pharmas? Exactly. Yet you are able to get hard facts on remission rates and effectiveness of allopathic medicine... Well, there are anti-viral medications that cure. Anti-cancerous medications that cure. Anti-inflammatory medications that give the body a break so it cure itself (indirect cure). Adrenalin can cure you in a situation you would otherwise die in. Anti-depression medication can cure, but psychological help is also recommended along with it. I had a massive amount of Amylase in my blood once, I was digesting myself alive. They pumped evil medication into me and I was good within a few hours (though my body was knackered for several weeks afterwards). And you've been listening to naturopaths. Hurrah. Seriously though, since we don't know for sure the exact details behind depression we can't know for sure. However, serotonin is linked to depression - and many anti-depressants suppress serotonin reuptake. This might be upsetting the balance, or it might be that the suppression isn't happening as it should.Either way, the point I made still stands - they get you with it enough to undergo other treatments such as psychological if that is the root cause. If you are depressed its hard enough to get to the GP, let alone seek councelling. Right - and I know dozens of people who have functioned well enough afterwards.

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There is no difference between "synthetic" vitamin C and the vitamin C in an orange. No difference. At all. Period.

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Your bare assertion to the contrary makes no sense.

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I've made no such assertion. Actually, I agree. Most of the vitamin C in products (even from health food stores) is synthetic.In Message 228 I stated: Supposedly we cannot patent something that occurs in nature and Vitamin A only occurs in animal products. Are you saying that we can patent that which occurs in nature?So that you don't lose sight of what sparked my first comment, here is LindaLou's comment you were responding to: Her point was that the pharmaceutical industry is not going to spend money to extensively test natural vitamins because they can't patent natural vitamins. You disagreed.So far you haven't shown me that in the United States we are allowed to patent that which occurs naturally in nature, which means humans had nothing to do with it. Patents are for inventions made by man. IOW, we can't patent the vitamin C molecule extracted from an orange to my knowledge.You also haven't shown me that the pharmaceutical industry has tested a natural vitamin or herb extensively so that they could market that natural product, as opposed to creating a synthetic version or portion that could be patented. Message 228I also made no claim concerning synthetic and natural vitamins. I simply asked you to support your comment in Message 230. Now if by "these vitamins" you were only referring to Vitamin A or C, I apologize for misunderstanding your comment.If you were referring to all vitamins, then the article you provided (NATURAL AND SYNTHETIC SUBSTANCES RELATED TO HUMAN HEALTH; Pure Appl.Chem., Vol.74, No.10, pp.1957-1985, 2002.) said otherwise. It showed that natural and synthetic Vitamin E have differences in how they behave. If there is absolutely no difference between the natural and synthetic, why make the synthetic?If there is absolutely no difference between the natural and the synthetic, then there isn't anything wrong with choosing the natural over the synthetic.

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A pitbull is a modified dog.

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Is it manmade?

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If man purposely bred two species, then yes it is "manmade". Now whether the US patent office allows patents for new animal breeds, I don't know. I'm not sure that it is worth the expense since creating a new breed of animal is rather time consuming. There are usually registries for various animal breeds. I'm not really sure what the pit bull has to do with our discussion concerning patenting natural vitamins.

Vitamin E is produced by the ton and, when it is industrially produced this way, it is structurally different from natural vitamin E. However, it is possible to produce manmade vitamin E that is structurally the same as naturally occurring vitamin E (and that is the kind that top dollar supplements have). The less bioactive form (you pee it out faster so it doesn't have a chance to bind to fats, etc.) is just cheaper (and easier) to produce. Of course I disagreed.
Because she didn't say NATURAL vitamin.
She said vitamin.
And BigPharma makes BigBucks off vitamins (and have tested them extensively).How do you think we found out that industrially produced vitamin E is of a different biopotency?
BigPharma and their evil twin, IUPAC, that's how.You made the distinction between vitamin C "in nature" and manmade vitamin C. And I repeat. Because there is no structural difference, the patents are on "something found in nature".Let's put it this way.I hand you 2 electronmicroscopic images.
Both are of vitamin C.
I ask you to pick which came from an orange and which came from a vat at my chem lab.You won't be able to tell.It is analogous to manmade water and "natural" water.
They are structurally, chemically, and functionally the same.Do you distinguish between water that is manmade and water that is "natural"? Because the U.S. grants patents on animals. You can repeat ad nauseum that manmade vitamin C is not "natural" all you like. It doesn't change the fact that: Both the manmade and "natural" versions are structurally, chemically, and functionally the same.With an oncomouse you have an argument. Not with vitamin C.And BigPharma has tested tons of vitamins and other "biologicals".From the same IUPAC report. Penicillin is manufactured industrially, too. Do you complain when your penicillin isn't secreted by a fungi?No.Because it is structurally, chemically, and functionally the same as that which is fungically produced.