Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9162 total)
5 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,815 Year: 3,072/9,624 Month: 917/1,588 Week: 100/223 Day: 11/17 Hour: 0/0


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   Holistic Doctors, and medicine
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 238 of 304 (423935)
09-24-2007 9:06 PM


A Few Comments
One of the saddest recent developments in the health supplement area is the big way in which large pharmaceutical companies have jumped in to take advantage of this easy profit source. Instead of spending years on research and development, then more years on testing and approval in the FDA regulatory maze, then much money on marketing to doctors because the drugs have to be prescribed before they can be purchased, they can instead quickly and cheaply bring health supplements to market and make money right away. This falls into the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" category.
Regarding alternative medicine, it's not really possible to convince away a true believer. All human endeavor is fraught with error, and those inclined toward condemning traditional medicine will have no problem finding ammunition to arm their distrust. Negative data is easy to find because the industry is so regulated, while alternative medicine is largely unregulated and unmonitored by any central agency. It all comes down to whether you trust published research of peer reviewed experiments and medical trials (and the channels through which the results are disseminated to the public) or anecdote. No one with a good understanding of the difference would choose the latter.
Alternative medicine did not invent pasteurization or conquer diseases like smallpox, TB and polio. It did not develop the germ theory of disease. It did not develop rigorous protocols for testing its medicines and procedures. These are achievements of traditional medicine developed over time by rigorous studies of the real world. The absence of both verified achievements and rigorous procedures really tells you all you need to know about alternative medicine.
Less formally, let me add that I just don't get why people fall for this stuff. Using toxins as an example, the ads run something like this: "Feeling tired and run down? Well that's because your body builds up toxins taken in from the environment of our industrial world. So buy Al's Anti-toxin Bars and get your old energy back! Just look at all these testimonials from people who have tried Al's Anti-toxin Bars and are feeling better than they have in years!"
There's no medical evidence of "toxins" building up in a normal person's body. Just ask any of these flim-flam men the chemical formula for some of these toxins. They can't tell you (unless they lie or misrepresent), because they don't exist. Then ask them for the peer-reviewed double-blind research studies that measured the amount of the "toxins" in the blood both before and after the treatment. They can't show them to you, because they don't exist, either.
Let me say something else that has probably already been said in this thread. In most cases, alternative medicine is harmless. Most of it won't hurt you, and since many human ailments go away by themselves it will often seem to work. But the worst case scenario is when someone with a serious or even deadly disease or condition seeks alternative medicine, wasting valuable time before seeking help from traditional medicine. Sometimes the delay is deadly.
--Percy

Replies to this message:
 Message 240 by Kitsune, posted 09-25-2007 3:15 AM Percy has replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 245 of 304 (424025)
09-25-2007 9:13 AM
Reply to: Message 240 by Kitsune
09-25-2007 3:15 AM


Re: A Few Comments
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.
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Grammar.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 240 by Kitsune, posted 09-25-2007 3:15 AM Kitsune has not replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 251 of 304 (424053)
09-25-2007 10:49 AM
Reply to: Message 249 by Kitsune
09-25-2007 9:50 AM


Re: A Few Comments
LindaLou writes:
All I am able to give is anecdotal evidence.
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.
You've been listening to the media and the brainwashed GPs.
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.
Check out what Dr. Breggin says about this. I will link to his site again: Breggin.com | Home
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.
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.
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?
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Remove EFA comment.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 249 by Kitsune, posted 09-25-2007 9:50 AM Kitsune has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 259 by Buzsaw, posted 09-25-2007 9:33 PM Percy has not replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 270 of 304 (424208)
09-26-2007 8:51 AM
Reply to: Message 264 by Kitsune
09-26-2007 2:44 AM


Re: A Few Comments
LindaLou in Message 264 writes:
I can see now that many people here will accept nothing as "proof" other than a study published in a peer-reviewed journal. I can understand why that would be the case; if you are a scientist, then to do otherwise would be unprofessional, that just isn't how science works.
LindaLou in Message 265 in reply to molbiogirl writes:
Do you accept studies in peer-reviewed journals as a law unto themselves, i.e. they must be true because of their very nature?
Scientific peer-reviewed studies do not represent proof, nor do they permit a final conclusion. There are no final conclusions within science because all conclusions must remain tentative to qualify as science. And peer-reviewed studies only represent evidence which can added to the body of evidence from other peer-reviewed studies to form hypotheses and even eventually theories of how things really work in the real world.
In the absence of sufficient supporting evidence it wouldn't really be accurate to call some of your conclusions we're discussing here wrong, but it would certainly be fair and honest to state that many of them are unsupported by the results from any clinical trials. What should wave a red flag for you, and for anyone else investigating the world of alternative medicine, is the lack of research and clinical trials. The best you can say about alternative medicine is, "Maybe true, maybe not, maybe good for you, maybe bad for you, who could know."
LindaLou in Message 265 in reply to molbiogirl writes:
I will seriously consider what you are saying about Pauling if you can find a study that repeated his methods exactly, including the amounts of vitamin C that he used. So far the abstracts given here have not used the correct amounts. Yet you still dismiss Pauling as a "loon"; if you are basing that on these kinds of studies then that is disingenuous.
You say that Molbiogirl's abstracts "have not used the correct amounts" of vitamin C. Where are the studies that established the correct amounts? That's a rhetorical question, because they're aren't any. You're in essence asking Molbiogirl to rebut with technical papers a claim that as of yet has no scientific foundation.
I repeat again, the scientific method is the best approach we have for reliably establishing the nature of the real world. Anecdote is a known very unsound approach for learning about the real world, and it provides practically all the evidence in support of all sorts of scientifically unestablished claims, from Bigfoot to ESP to UFOs to numerology and so on and so on and on and on.
The online world contains a huge number of examples of anecdote. The most common used to run something like this: "Forward this email to all your friends and you will have good luck. If you break the chain of this email then misfortune will overtake you. Robert F. failed to forward this email and he lost his job the next day. He went home and forwarded the email, and the next day he was called back in to work and given a vice-president's job."
That's anecdote, and while the anecdotes you're relying on may seem much more persuasive to you than the above, probably because much of it comes from real people who really believe what they're saying, it's still anecdote, which makes it unreliable in the extreme as a source of medical information.
At best anecdote can serve as a guide when seeking possible fruitful opportunities for scientific investigation, but it cannot serve in any way as reliable medical information.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 264 by Kitsune, posted 09-26-2007 2:44 AM Kitsune has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 273 by Kitsune, posted 09-26-2007 9:31 AM Percy has replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 272 of 304 (424215)
09-26-2007 9:17 AM
Reply to: Message 269 by Kitsune
09-26-2007 8:41 AM


Re: Linus Pauling
LindaLou writes:
That studies published in the most prestigious journals can be flawed.
First, it wouldn't be valid to base the rejection of science as a method for deciphering the real world upon the fact that the human beings conducting the science aren't perfect and make mistakes. Last time I checked, people were the only entities around for puzzling about the real world, whether they use the scientific method or not.
Second, no one study by itself is conclusive. Prior to replication a study on a new area can at best be considered "interesting" and worthy of further studies. When multiple studies (replications of the original study) reach the same conclusions then scientists can begin to develop some confidence that they've learned something that is actually true about the real world.
Third, whatever the faults of the scientific method due to the foibles of its practitioners, those same foibles also contribute to anecdote, and to a far greater degree.
It is not standard practice for an AD study not to include a placebo group.
Sounds like a red flag to me. If this study truly isn't valid then the solution is to repeat the study properly and not to rely upon anecdote.
This study does not show that ADs help millions of people, though I'll hazard a bet that many were put on the drugs anyway after this study was published. You see web sites crowing, "third time's the charm." What you don't see are studies on how stopping these meds abruptly and switching them affects the body and specifically the CNS. No one seems to be interested in doing those.
Sounds regrettable to me, too. There are dozens of flaws in the way decisions are made about which studies will go forward. Replication studies can be some of the most difficult to obtain funding for, because a grant application to repeat a study will often be denied because it repeats work already done. Well, duh! That's the whole idea. So grant applicants have to propose a variation around the study they intend to replicate, but that can make comparisons difficult. And there are many other such problems in medical research.
But the solution is not anecdote.
My daughter and I have been taking more vitamin C than this for 2 years and it has never been a problem. Nor has it been when my husband is taking it. They're quite simply wrong.
I couldn't hope for a better example of anecdote. Missing from personal endorsements like this is any reliable information about actual efficacy, side effects, cautions, impact on existing medical conditions, mixing with other supplements or drugs, or long term effects after 5 years, 10 years, 25 years across a diverse segment of the population. Only double-blind studies can accurately ferret out such information.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 269 by Kitsune, posted 09-26-2007 8:41 AM Kitsune has not replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 276 of 304 (424224)
09-26-2007 10:16 AM
Reply to: Message 273 by Kitsune
09-26-2007 9:31 AM


Re: A Few Comments
LindaLou writes:
Your discussion of peer-reviewed studies is sound Percy; faint praise coming from a non-scientist maybe, but I do see abstracts cited here as if they themselves represent the final proof of the issue.
I'm familiar with the others participating in this thread, and none of them would conclude that studies represent proof, and further, they understand that within science there is no such thing as proof. You can introduce evidence from studies in support of a theory, but the theory remains always falsifiable through the discovery of new evidence and/or the evolvement of improved insights.
I think what other participants are trying to get it is: 1) how poor anecdote is on an absolute scale as a source of medical guidance; and 2) the vast superiority of the scientific method as a way of determining the effects of any medicine or treatment.
Here's an anecdote for you. Up until 15 years ago, my wife was a friendly but shy person with a few close friends who were also on the shy side. In fact, a majority of my wife's closest friends from college never married and might even be considered socially challenged. Then my wife went on antidepressants and the difference has been like night and day. She became suddenly social, a girl scout leader, a joiner and participator, and she developed a broader circle of friends (who though mostly married seem to have man-trouble in common, go figure).
What would I recommend from this experience? That people who think they might be depressed should seek professional medical help with whom they can develop approaches and protocols appropriate for them.
I also get your point about anecdotes. If you are a skeptic, correct me if I'm wrong, but you don't accept them as evidence.
I would resist labels like "skeptic", and I accept everything as evidence. But I understand the night and day difference between the quality of evidence from anecdotes versus double-blind study. People are extremely poor judges of the effects of treatments on their own health, not to mention that one's personal experience often does not generalize to others.
If combined with anecdotes from others you've trial-and-error'd your way into an alternative medical treatment regimen that works for you, then I think that's wonderful, but also lucky, and one must resist the conclusion that anecdote is a valid alternative to traditional medical approaches developed using the scientific method.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 273 by Kitsune, posted 09-26-2007 9:31 AM Kitsune has not replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 280 of 304 (424229)
09-26-2007 10:23 AM
Reply to: Message 278 by Kitsune
09-26-2007 10:18 AM


Re: Vitamin C
LindaLou writes:
The fact that I and people I know can take 10 times this amount with no stomach pain or diarrhoea would rather cast doubt on its validity.
Boy are you ever missing the point!
So let's say Asgara goes out and finds people who suffer adverse effects from megadoses of vitamin C. Anecdote contradicts anecdote. Now what?
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 278 by Kitsune, posted 09-26-2007 10:18 AM Kitsune has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 281 by Kitsune, posted 09-26-2007 10:31 AM Percy has replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 283 of 304 (424239)
09-26-2007 10:48 AM
Reply to: Message 281 by Kitsune
09-26-2007 10:31 AM


Re: Vitamin C
LindaLou writes:
I know someone who can't take any vitamin C supplements at all. She is an extremely ill person with a number of things wrong with her. My ND says that sometimes the body gets into a kind of defensive mode and rejects much of what is put into it, harmful or helpful, and in that case the helpful things need to be introduced very slowly and carefully. Again . . . anecdote. Maybe this isn't the best place to be saying these things, I'm not going to be winning any debating points.
This is the fallacy of special pleading, or more familiarly, concocting ad hoc excuses.
Examples of people caught up in this fallacy abound. For instance, someone puts their overactive child on ritalin. He has a good day, parents and teachers conclude the ritalin is working. He has a bad day, they conclude he isn't responding to the ritalin that day.
The special pleading here is that sometimes the ritalin works, sometimes it doesn't.
An alternative conclusion: short of evidence from a history that recorded his good and bad days prior to beginning medication so that one can measure whether his proportion of bad days has changed (for better or worse), a more valid conclusion is that the ritalin isn't doing anything.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 281 by Kitsune, posted 09-26-2007 10:31 AM Kitsune has not replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 293 of 304 (424336)
09-26-2007 3:43 PM
Reply to: Message 292 by Kitsune
09-26-2007 2:26 PM


Re: STAR*D etc
LindaLou writes:
Sorry, but nothing that's been said here is going to cause me to think that this is all a hoax or a pack of lies.
I don't think anyone here is saying that anecdote is a hoax or a pack of lies. Sure, some take advantage of people's willingness to rely on anecdote to engage in flim-flam, but I don't think that's what anyone is focused on right now.
You're making several mistakes.
First, you're advancing anecdote as superior to replicated clinical trials.
Second, you're denigrating clinical trials for poor and poorly thought out reasons.
Third, though I'm sure you know this isn't true, many of your conclusions only make sense if one assumes that everyone is the same and reacts the same to the same treatment regimen. That someone has a bad experience with Drug X doesn't mean that everyone else would have the same experience. The side-effects section of the information sheet that comes with antidepressant medication often provides a rough idea of the proportion of patients that might experience any particular one of them. That you evidently fall into this minority merely means you were unlucky, not that antidepressants are bad for everyone and Big Pharma is an evil empire.
Asgara attempted to make clear the problems anecdotal approaches face with this simple question: There are positive and negative anecdotes about antidepressants. Now what?
The obvious answer, and you're a prime example, is that you choose the anecdotes that best match you're own experience. All that means is that you've found a group of like-minded and like-experienced people, which can be wonderful and very meaningfully helpful. But this isn't a basis upon which to build any valid medical conclusions.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 292 by Kitsune, posted 09-26-2007 2:26 PM Kitsune has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 294 by Kitsune, posted 09-26-2007 4:53 PM Percy has not replied

Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024