Safety and Effectiveness of Herbs and Pharmaceuticals

ERV has a nice write-up on the resurgence of mumps orchitis in post-pubescent adults who were not vaccinated in the 1990's due to the autism scare. It has a nice little evolutionary tie in given the fact that mumps orchitis (swollen balls) can result in infertility. Perhaps the anti-vaccine crowd will become extinct.Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

Unsubstantiated claims about the link between the MMR vaccine and autism has resulted in many kids not getting the vaccine. The result? They get those diseases which can turn deadly and have lifelong consequences. There are kids today who are infertile because they contracted mumps. Measles can cause encephalitis and death. People who keep this unfounded paranoia going are responsible for the resurgence of these diseases.

Can you please cite the clinical trials that support this claim? If no clinical, scientific studies exist then how can you make these claims?Also, if natural medications are not effective in treating illness then who cares if they don't have any side effects. You need to show that they are effective and have fewer side effects compared to a comparable pharm product in clinical trials if you are going to make these claims.Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

There was widespread knowledge that the Sun moved about the Earth as well. No clinical trial = no evidence of efficacy.

This is why clinical trials are run independently of the pharm company. Yes, there has been malfeasance in the past with regards to clinical trials. However, this only points to the necessity of running strongly independent clinical trials.With "natural remedies" you have the company running everything without any independent fact checking. This leads to false claims, unneeded risk to the patient, and outright fraud. There is every reason in the world to bring natural remedies under the same rules that we have for pharmaceuticals.

Are we forgetting about all of the living and cured due to pharms? Antibiotics alone have save billions over the last 100 years.Also, you did not address the strong possibility of fraud. That is, the stuff doesn't do what the manufacturers claims it does. Without a clinical trial you can't claim any effect. I am suggesting the same independent verification of efficacy that all medicines go through. Why is this a problem? If these natural remedies do what you claim then it shouldn't be a problem. What evidence do you have that it is due to the naturals? So we should have the freedom to sell snake oil as a cure all? Really? I don't remember seeing that in the constitution.

What I am more interested in is what it does, not in what it doesn't do.You might as well market purified air as a cure for cancer with the argument that it doesn't have any side effects. Does that make sense?

Can you please cite the clinical trials of wholistic vs. std. medical treatments? Cancer is unavoidable. You will get cancer if something else doesn't kill you first. Unless you can magically stop DNA polymerases from making mistakes, stop retroviruses from inserting into oncogenes, and make a shield around the earth that stops high energy particles you will get cancer. If you are in touch with God perhaps you should ask him why he made our Sun such a powerful emitter of cancer causing radiation.

Some of my colleagues research cancer. I read the primary lit., you know, that sciency stuff. Cancer is unavoidable. It is only a matter of time before you have enough mutations in a minimum number of oncogenes.

So you are saying that scientists are discovering cancer cures and throwing them out the window? Really? Have any evidence to back this up? They are not of that mindset, and it is insulting for you to even suggest it. Of course, this is the unfounded paranoia that the wholistic medicine crowd fosters. They believe the worse in all other people while excusing themselves of any skepticism whatsoever.

I don't know, would they? Where is this scientific evidence?Note: I am not discounting holistic regiments a priori. What I keep asking for is the scientific evidence that they work. I am not even asking for a mode of action. All I am asking for is a side by side comparison to either standard medical treatments or placebo. Drugs such as penicillin and digitalis were discovered in fungus and plants respectively. I am not saying that holistic medicines can not work. I am asking do they work.

Cancers can naturally go into remission without any treatment, holistic or standard. This means nothing. It means even less since you haven't shown an increase in survival for holistic vs. standard treatments. I am not asking for holistic vs. placebo since that would be an unethical clinical trial.

I think there are entire threads devoted to the Placebo effect, but I thought I would post this one study here since it seems to fit.For a long time arthroscopic surgery was thought to alleviate pain for people with arthritis in their knees. Doctors swore by it. Patients swore by it. So what happened when a real clinical trial was run? Arthroscopic knee surgery for arthritic knees was no better than placebo. People who were given just an incision on the side of their knee reported the same pain alleviation as those who underwent the entire procedure. You can read the study here. This is just one example of hundreds where doctors swore that a treatment was effective, but when tested it wasn't any better than placebo. This is why I keep asking for real clinical trials.

Then show the scientific evidence that he is using the best of everything. I just cited an article that hospitals were using an ineffective surgery to alleviate pain. The only way that the lack of efficacy was discovered was through a blinded clinical trial. Merely citing the use of treatment is not evidence of its efficacy. Evidence please. I am not asking for media coverage. I am asking for scientific clinical trials. I am well aware of the disconnect between the status of scientific findings and what the general media reports. It can be quite atrocious at times. This ignores the fact that cancer research has made huge strides where holistic medicine has not. The success rate for some cancers is nearly 100% while the 5 year survival has been greatly increased for other cancers. This is all backed up by clinical trials.