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Author Topic:   Safety and Effectiveness of Herbs and Pharmaceuticals
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 166 of 209 (555576)
04-14-2010 9:10 AM
Reply to: Message 164 by Buzsaw
04-14-2010 8:49 AM


Re: Not the Question
Other than their use of the word "holistic" on a few of their webpages, Scripps Health (not Scripts Clinic) seems like a standard network of physicians, hospitals and clinics promoting traditional medicine. I wouldn't have any problem using Scripps, though their Center for Integrative Medicine seems a bit flaky with their promotion of treatments like acupuncture.
--Percy

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 Message 164 by Buzsaw, posted 04-14-2010 8:49 AM Buzsaw has not replied

  
Apothecus
Member (Idle past 2410 days)
Posts: 275
From: CA USA
Joined: 01-05-2010


Message 167 of 209 (555577)
04-14-2010 9:27 AM
Reply to: Message 164 by Buzsaw
04-14-2010 8:49 AM


Re: Not the Question
Hey Buz.
Aside from the fact that you attempted to answer the question with another question (I would say you dodged it again), do you really know what the Scripps Institute does? First and foremost, it employs cutting edge technology (science at its best) for a multitude of treatable conditions, from cardiac stents to sclerotic therapy. Second, the latest medically proven pharmaceuticals are used, complementing primary therapy to ensure long-term, successful outcomes.
Adjunct to this (it almost seems it's added as a tiny postscript) are various "holistic" therapies, such as healing touch, stress therapy, massage, acupuncture, nutrition, and the like. I don't think anyone is claiming these types of therapies are useless, Buz. If they can provide a measure of mental or physical well being pursuant to some medically and scientifically proven procedure, then great!
What folks here object to is your apparent assertion that holistic healing is as effective a medical therapy, as, say, a corneal transplant or cancer treatment.
Edited by Apothecus, : Added "nutrition" for Buz

"My own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose. J.B.S Haldane 1892-1964

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Replies to this message:
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Granny Magda
Member
Posts: 2462
From: UK
Joined: 11-12-2007
Member Rating: 4.0


Message 168 of 209 (555578)
04-14-2010 9:31 AM
Reply to: Message 150 by Kitsune
04-13-2010 7:38 AM


Re: Alt med and vaccines
Hi Kitsune,
Time pressures are growing on me again after the Easter holidays but I will stick with this as long as I can.
Am I to take that you've stopped pretending you're not debating this then?
The GMC also readily ousts people who do not strictly play by their rules.
More unsubstantiated accusations. Citations or it never happened.
I have been ill for 5 1/2 years and mainstream doctors have failed me utterly.
News flash! Personal anecdotes are irrelevant! I also notice that your choice of language implies that you are still ill, so alternative medicine has done no more than conventional.
Also, if it's anecdotes you're after, try this. I am only alive because of pharmaceuticals. Without them, I would not have lived to see puberty, but would have died an agonising death. "Allopathy" saved my life. Try doing that with coconut oil.
efore this I was like you and many others here, I knew little to nothing about alternative medicine and was happy to take whatever my doctor felt necessary to prescribe for me.
More unsubstantiated accusations. This time you presume to know not only how educated I am on the subject of alt-med, but how I behave at my doctor's. Has it occurred to you Kitsune, that I might know plenty about alt-med and yet still dismiss it? Just because I don't agree with you does not mean that I am ignorant.
but the jury is still out with me about Dr. Wakefield.
This misses the point. It is not a question of the jury being out. It is a question of Wakefield (or you, or anyone else) producing actual evidence of a link between MMR and autism. That is the starting point for any MMR/autism concerns. He has failed to produce this. There is no jury because there is no case to answer in the first place. Disagree? Then produce the evidence that MMR is linked to autism, the evidence that I have been asking for all week. If you can't produce that evidence, you really have nothing of value to say on the subject.
At the moment I buy cold-pressed chemical-free virgin coconut oil from a country that sources from independent growers in the Philippines, and they charge 13.99 for 500ml. I do wish the overall prices would come down.
Bet you a pound that bog-standard coconut oil form the grocers will work as well. Try it. You have nothing to lose.
I've seen him {Mercola} mention all sorts of natural things that one can try using. Notice that he never says "use this certified cure" about anything (nor does he say, for that matter, "do not vaccinate your children");
No, he prefers scare stories and vague claims, much easier to make and no need to back them up with any pesky statistics.
I haven't tried baking soda for any of the things he recommends but I'm not beyond doing so.
Would you try it for cancer? Seriously, because that's what Simoncini recommends for his candida-tumours. And Mercola promotes Simoncini and calls him "brilliant". Mercola complains that Simoncini has been "persecuted". Poor baby.
Why are you so certain that it's useless for anything other than raising cakes or scrubbing the kitchen counter -- is it just because your "common sense" tells you it's nonsense? How do you know?
You are misrepresenting my position. I have no idea whether baking soda is effective against cancer. But then, I'm not the one who is boosting it on my website. Mercola is. How do you know that baking soda might be useful? Because Mercola says so? How does Mercola know that it is medicinally useful? Answer; he doesn't. How does Simoncini know that it fights candida cancer? He doesn't. They pull these claims out of their asses and expect to be taken seriously. That's malpractice. Studies first, claims later. Citations or it never happened. That's how medicine works, that is how it has progressed and that is the only acceptable way of doing medicine.
By the way, what Dr. Mercola does advocate time and time again, which you will see listed at the bottom of many of his web pages, is a healthy lifestyle that includes diet, exercise, proper sleep, relaxation, and so forth. Are you going to argue about that too?
Of course not. What I do find laughable is the idea that this is somehow alternative medicine. As if the evil allopaths are encouraging their patients to subsist on lard butties and dripping.
About "cancer is a fungus" . . . again, I've studied candida overgrowth and its alleged effects. I've looked into ways of clearing it. I've even gone on a regimen for myself in case that was part of my health problem. I didn't watch the video but I read the article, which says that cancer may be the body's response to candida. Could that be the case at least some of the time? IMO very possibly so.
No. You have no business dismissing this when you can't even be arsed to look inot it. Watch the video. Simoncini is saying that all tumours have candida at their centre. He knows this because they are all white (they are not) and fungus is white (no-one who knows even the slightest thing about fungus could say this with a straight face). He knows this because the tumours are squishy in the centre (something already known to oncologists and satisfactorily explained). He does not, say, do a DNA test to find the candida, something that might seem to be a simple and irrefutable proof of his theory. Simoncini is an insane moronic quack and Joe Mercola thinks he's "brilliant". This is cast iron proof that Mercola is a scientific illiterate whose advice should be taken with several truck-loads of salt.
quote:
Parents are urged to ensure their children get the MMR jab. Measles cases in England and Wales rose by 36% in 2008, figures show. Confirmed cases increased from 990 in 2007 to 1,348 last year - the highest figure since the monitoring scheme was introduced in 1995.
Granny writes:
Vaccination could have prevented those cases.
Kitsune writes:
This is still a miniscule portion of the population.
Oh, so that's okay then. It's only a few sick kids. A mere trifle.
Vaccination could have prevented those cases. Quack medicine and media bullshit induced people to stop vaccinating their kids. This is the result.
Vaccination has become such an ingrained part of our culture, it is now considered horrific if someone catches one of these diseases, even though a generation ago they were seen as a normal part of childhood.
Yes, a generation ago, seeing kids die of measles was considered normal. Now it's not. I am suggesting that this is a good thing.
Why do we now need a chicken pox vaccine?
Because it can kill. The vaccine can't. This is not complicated.
I do not believe that vaccines are purely harmless and I am concerned about the growing numbers of them that are given to young children nowadays, especially in the US.
Well cite some damn studies to back this shit up then! Jeez, would it kill you to cite something that backs up a link between MMR and autism? Or thermirosal and autism? Or showing a major risk with chickenpox vaccine?
You are welcome to believe whatever comforting piffle you like, but if you're going to bring it here, you know the score; citations or it never happened.
I want to know why you think people like Steven Barrett are so hell-bent on discrediting people who sell nutritional supplements when prescription medications given and taken correctly are killing thousands of people every year and leaving others with horrific side effects.
It is simply not relevant. Do you have any objection to Barret's claims about Mercola? Which of his claims is materially false? No? If you can't demonstrate that what Barret says is false, it doesn't matter what his motivations are.
I mentioned Zyprexa; do you know what akathisia is? If it were herbs causing these effects you'd be up in arms. But it's different with prescription meds somehow.
Bullshit. You are again, trying to misrepresent me. I want to see all treatments, whether herbal or synthetic, treated exactly the same., as I have said about a hundred times on this thread. I want them trialled and proved effective. I want all their side-effects to be studied. This is what happens in the pharmaceutical industry. How do you know that Zyprexia causes akathisia? Did a herbalist tell you? No, the drug companies test their products. I want herbalists and other potion-wallahs to be forced to do the same. That's all.
And yet, strangely, there were no deaths caused by nutritional supplements in 2008. None. How does that fit in with your arguments here about these dangerous unregulated substances?
Meanwhile, in Singapore;
quote:
Both patients had taken brews of Datura metel L., and developed poisoning soon afterwards. Prominent clinical features included confusion, dilated pupils, absence of sweating, and the absence of sluggish bowel sounds. No flushing of the face or skin was detected in either case. Both patients recovered fully within 12 hours with supportive measures, and no gastric elimination or antidote was used. The different names ascribed to Datura metel L. in chinese medicine can be confusing; this confusion resulted in the poisoning of one of our patients.
Two instances of Chinese herbal medicine poisoning in Singapore - PubMed
It does not matter how many people use herbs with no apparent ill effects. What matters is that some have been injured by their use. That means that they should be regulated. Simple. Of course, the fact that one study showed that 92% of those taking herbals failed to report this to their doctor, makes me rather dubious of the value of your article. How are we supposed to know how dangerous or safe herbals are when no-one is keeping track of their use? For the record, I doubt that there are many fatalities. That makes no comment on other, non-fatal side effects.
Granny writes:
Are you ever going to provide evidence that MMR is linked to autism?
Kitsune writes:
I don't know for sure that it is. I never said I was sure that it was. I believe it may be a possibility.
Based on what? It's a possibility that it's caused by all sorts of things. Where is your evidence for this claim? Citations or do please shut up about it.
Now, I asked you to cite the monkey study. You responded with Wakefield, who says this;
quote:
It was never done
Which stands in stark contrast to your claim in Message 108;
Kitsune writes:
He has studied the effects of multiple vaccinations in monkeys
He has not and he admits as much. Cry conspiracy all you like, your claim was false.
I would wholeheartedly support such a study. I would expect such studies to be done before I subjected my child to a US-style vaccination schedule. Why is this not happening?
Probably partly because there is no evidence to link autism to vaccines in the first place, partly because Wakefield's ineptness and lack of basic ethics has poisoned the well. No-one is likely to research this because no-one wants to be associated with the kind of quack medicine that has characterised this field. Given that there is no particular reason to think that this is important work anyway, it's hardly surprising that no-one wants to touch it.
Was the paper withdrawn due to the influence of a drug company that manufactures vaccines? Who knows.
For fucks sake... If you don't know, why are you bothering with this conspiracy theory bullshit? How about you come back when you actually do know? Until then all you have is bullshit and supposition.
How many people are really aware that they have turned into walking lab experiments?
Ooh, er... let me see... er... none? Yeah, none. Not sure how that was supposed to relevant anyway, since personal anecdote is worthless, but it's none.
Granny writes:
Or show that coconut oil fights cancer?
Kitsune writes:
As part of a healthy diet, you bet it does.
You're kidding? Kitsune, all foods can fight cancer as part of a healthy balanced diet. That is nothing special and not worth making claims about. When Mercola boosts coconut oil, he gives a false impression that it has some special property that marks it out as being of medicinal value. I say to him what I say to you; citations or it never happened.
We seem to be actively disagreeing with each other. It might just be nice to keep the topic from continually expanding because having to write very lengthy posts puts me off posting anything at all.
Then get back to the original point. Tell me why we should even begin to suspect that MMR is linked to autism.
Mutate and Survive

This message is a reply to:
 Message 150 by Kitsune, posted 04-13-2010 7:38 AM Kitsune has replied

Replies to this message:
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Taq
Member
Posts: 9972
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.5


Message 169 of 209 (555580)
04-14-2010 9:40 AM
Reply to: Message 164 by Buzsaw
04-14-2010 8:49 AM


Re: Not the Question
Would the world renouned Scripts Clinic and other scientifically astute institutions integrate holistic regimes into their healthcare methodologies if they were not scientifically evidenced?
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.

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Taq
Member
Posts: 9972
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.5


Message 170 of 209 (555581)
04-14-2010 9:42 AM
Reply to: Message 161 by Buzsaw
04-13-2010 10:54 PM


Re: FDA - Cancer Research
The evidence is people who were given up as terminal by conventional MDs still walking around alive and functioning.
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.

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Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 171 of 209 (555583)
04-14-2010 9:49 AM
Reply to: Message 168 by Granny Magda
04-14-2010 9:31 AM


Re: Alt med and vaccines
The GMC also readily ousts people who do not strictly play by their rules.
More unsubstantiated accusations. Citations or it never happened.
I'm not sure why you take this tack. Surely we want a General Medical Council that ousts those who don't play by its rules? Isn't the entire idea of a professional governing body that it enforces standards of practice?
I understand this isn't the case in Alt. Med. where the rule seems to be that professional bodies are there to spin FUD while encouraging their members to hide the bodies while they can, see the British Chiropractic Association's response to Simon Singh for some lovely examples of this, but surely in actual real world grown up medical practice this is exactly the sort of thing we want to see happening?
TTFN,
WK

This message is a reply to:
 Message 168 by Granny Magda, posted 04-14-2010 9:31 AM Granny Magda has replied

Replies to this message:
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Taq
Member
Posts: 9972
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.5


Message 172 of 209 (555586)
04-14-2010 9:55 AM


Placebo effect
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.

  
Granny Magda
Member
Posts: 2462
From: UK
Joined: 11-12-2007
Member Rating: 4.0


Message 173 of 209 (555587)
04-14-2010 9:57 AM
Reply to: Message 171 by Wounded King
04-14-2010 9:49 AM


Re: Alt med and vaccines
Hi WK,
I see what you're saying and indeed, I agree. I'm just a little sick of Kitsune making accusations and not even bothering to try and substantiate them. If she believes that the GMC has unfairly ousted people (as she attempts to imply) she should cite cases. Then let us see how unfair they are.
You're right though. If doctors can't keep to the rules of their profession, they should not be in practice.
Mutate and Survive

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Buzsaw
Inactive Member


Message 174 of 209 (555593)
04-14-2010 10:53 AM
Reply to: Message 167 by Apothecus
04-14-2010 9:27 AM


Re: Not the Question
Apothecus writes:
Adjunct to this (it almost seems it's added as a tiny postscript) are various "holistic" therapies, such as healing touch, stress therapy, massage, acupuncture, and the like. I don't think anyone is claiming these types of therapies are useless, Buz. If they can provide a measure of mental or physical well being pursuant to some medically and scientifically proven procedure, then great!
You're oversimplifying, Apothecus, without citing the nutritional elements of the Scripts regimes. They have enough scientific sense to use the best of everything, as does Dr. Whitaker's Wellness Clenic where he integrates with 5 other MDs under him.
I've cited a number of universities etc as well which integrate the holistic methologies. You people simply wave off this evidence that holistic is scientific. If it weren't, these higly reputable institutions would not implement them. Simple as that.
I've been talking integrating all along, yet you and others here falsely imply that I reject things like implants and other wonderful features of integrated methodology. Way back in this thread, I was talking integrateion. Injury cannot be patched up by holistic diet alone, but integrating holistic diet etc with surgery, etc makes for quicker and better recovery, for example.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist or a peer reviewed study for evidence that good oil and gasoline make the auto run efficiently. Neither does it take a clinical study to know that celentro, fresh pressed carrot juice, garlic and such are more conducive to remaining cancer free or healing than Pesi, salty potatoe chips and nitrited processed hot dogs.
Treating systemically, the whole body (holistic) logically makes more sense than spending millions, millions and ever more millions over the decades searching, searching, and researching for the magic silver bullet symptomatic breast cancer cure, enriching the researchers while the silver bullet cure awaits discovery. The holistically recoveries rarely if ever hit the news as evidence, but every thread of hope for the silver bullet pill gets extensively aired and reviewed. Over and over we hear these announcements aired, so the sheeples keep on keeping on shelling out, running marathons and donating to drives for cancer research.

BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The immeasurable present eternally extends the infinite past and infinitely consumes the eternal future.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 175 of 209 (555595)
04-14-2010 11:46 AM
Reply to: Message 174 by Buzsaw
04-14-2010 10:53 AM


Re: Not the Question
Buzsaw writes:
I've cited a number of universities etc as well which integrate the holistic methologies. You people simply wave off this evidence that holistic is scientific. If it weren't, these higly reputable institutions would not implement them. Simple as that.
Of course hospitals would implement treatment centers with no scientific foundation. All it takes is demand. Hospitals add homeopathic treatments and naturalistic treatments and holistic treatments for the same reason that pharmaceutical companies got into the supplement business: it brings in money. And the big bonus with bogus treatments and supplements is that they're usually simple and cheap, and I'd even add safe as long as a responsible doctor is involved.
--Percy

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Taq
Member
Posts: 9972
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.5


Message 176 of 209 (555597)
04-14-2010 12:26 PM
Reply to: Message 174 by Buzsaw
04-14-2010 10:53 AM


Re: Not the Question
They have enough scientific sense to use the best of everything, as does Dr. Whitaker's Wellness Clenic where he integrates with 5 other MDs under him.
Then show the scientific evidence that he is using the best of everything.
I've cited a number of universities etc as well which integrate the holistic methologies. You people simply wave off this evidence that holistic is scientific.
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.
Injury cannot be patched up by holistic diet alone, but integrating holistic diet etc with surgery, etc makes for quicker and better recovery, for example.
Evidence please.
The holistically recoveries rarely if ever hit the news as evidence, but every thread of hope for the silver bullet pill gets extensively aired and reviewed.
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.
Over and over we hear these announcements aired, so the sheeples keep on keeping on shelling out, running marathons and donating to drives for cancer research.
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.

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Kitsune
Member (Idle past 4300 days)
Posts: 788
From: Leicester, UK
Joined: 09-16-2007


(1)
Message 177 of 209 (555613)
04-14-2010 1:47 PM
Reply to: Message 168 by Granny Magda
04-14-2010 9:31 AM


Re: Alt med and vaccines
The GMC also readily ousts people who do not strictly play by their rules.
More unsubstantiated accusations. Citations or it never happened.
Wounded King posted about this as well. Do I think it's good to have a regulatory board? Yes. As long as they allow practitioners some freedom to treat patients in the best ways they see fit. My private doctor has been a naturopath for decades and he is a respected expert in metabolic medicine. What the GMC particularly didn't like was that, as physicians did of old, he takes symptoms seriously and acknowledges that blood tests don't always pick everything up. I could go on about this but given your penchant for demanding citations for everything, I am not starting a witch hunt here by giving his name. I guess that relegates this to the realm of meaningless anecdote for you so I will move on.
I also notice that your choice of language implies that you are still ill, so alternative medicine has done no more than conventional.
That's a daft thing to say. I'm a lot better than I was; I can work and look after my child. And I have not exhausted the different angles to this by any means. I am not inclined to pursue the pharmaceutical route any longer though because the 2 drugs I took did lasting damage to me. That doesn't mean I am 100% against all drugs for everything.
Also, if it's anecdotes you're after, try this. I am only alive because of pharmaceuticals. Without them, I would not have lived to see puberty, but would have died an agonising death. "Allopathy" saved my life. Try doing that with coconut oil.
You did what worked for you, others do what works for them. Coconut oil has greatly helped some people and in the course of looking into it recently, I'm going to be taking regular doses to see if it helps my own condition. No side effects. I am glad, by the way, that you got help when you needed it.
Has it occurred to you Kitsune, that I might know plenty about alt-med and yet still dismiss it?
If you do have a sizeable knowledge base, you have not yet demonstrated it here. You seem very angry about the subject.
It is a question of Wakefield (or you, or anyone else) producing actual evidence of a link between MMR and autism.
I can't at this time, and I didn't say there was one. Does that mean, in your apparently polarised way of thinking, that I have to believe that the MMR is 100% safe? If vaccines were as safe as you seem to believe, then why does the US have a vaccine adverse event reporting system (which the UK does as well)?
Vaccine manufacturers have paid out nearly $2B in damages to parents in America whose children were harmed by one of the childhood jabs such as the MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) or DPT (diphtheria-pertussis-tetanus). In all, around 2,000 families have received compensation payments that have averaged $850,000 each. There are a further 700 claims that are going through the pipeline. None of the claims is for autism as medical researchers say they have failed to find a link between the disease and the MMR vaccine, despite the initial findings made by Dr Andrew Wakefield. Instead they are for a wide spectrum of physical and mental conditions that are likely to have been caused by one of the vaccinations. Around 7,000 parents have filed a claim of an adverse reaction with America's Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP). To win an award, the claimant must prove a causal link to a vaccine. As the medical establishment has refused to recognise any link to autism, the VICP has so far rejected 300 claims for this outright. (Source: New England Journal of Medicine, 2007; 357: 1275-9).
(Bold emphasis mine) Source
How does Mercola know that it is medicinally useful? Answer; he doesn't. How does Simoncini know that it fights candida cancer? He doesn't. They pull these claims out of their asses and expect to be taken seriously. That's malpractice.
How does the medical establishment know that the only way to fight cancer is surgery, chemotherapy, or other invasive or harmful procedures? Do they know how it actually occurs or why it grows? Note that Dr. Mercola will not suggest to anyone that they should try any of the approaches he puts on his website exclusively, but he is offering possibilities. (And as the reader you are free to take it or leave it.) Until someone actually pays to do a study of the health effects of baking soda, then it is a harmless substance that I see no problem with trying. That's the great thing about much of alt med: you can try it like that and see if it works; and if it doesn't, no harm will come of it. The same cannot be said of prescription medications.
As if the evil allopaths are encouraging their patients to subsist on lard butties and dripping.
In my experience many of them do not realise how powerfully a person's diet affects them; are not aware of the effects of optimal (versus RDA just-above-deficiency-level) nutrition; do not know what a healthy diet is (and instead recommend the standard low-fat high-carb version); and know more about drugs than natural ways of helping the body heal itself. I would very much like to see this change.
Oh, so that's okay then. It's only a few sick kids. A mere trifle.
Vaccination could have prevented those cases. Quack medicine and media bullshit induced people to stop vaccinating their kids. This is the result.
Way to turn the tables. When I debated about this before and listed effects of prescription meds, including deaths, I was told that these were "insignificant" because the percentages were small compared to the people who were helped (which was also unsubstantiated). Now any concerns I have about the cocktail of vaccines that children are given nowadays, and the unknown effects, is supposed to be brushed away because it's heartless of me to say that it might sometimes be better not to vaccinate and allow healthy kids to develop natural immunity.
Why am I concerned? Because more and more vaccines are added to the immunization program and no one is studying the effects of the combined vaccines. Each vaccine uses an adjuvant such as aluminum, formaldehyde, or squalene which is injected directly into the bloodstream, bypassing all natural immune defenses, in order to stimulate the production of antibodies. You will read information that tells you that this is safe in individual vaccines (keeping in mind the fact that adverse events are still reported and compensation is paid out for damage from individual vaccines), but there are no studies that I am aware of that analyse the combined effects of the 24 (and counting) recommended vaccines in the US by age 2. According to you, because the studies aren't there, I'm being a dumb ass by questioning the safety of this.
thermirosal (sic) and autism
I have not brought up thimerosal at all apart from perhaps to mention that it is in flu shots. I am very glad to see that it is gone from other vaccines.
major risk with chickenpox vaccine
A couple of concerns should come to mind. Firstly, the length of time it is effective varies but tends to be short. Source This means that the age of susceptibility is older. Chickenpox in adults can be an extremely severe disease producing inflammation of the brain, while it tends to be much milder for young children. Secondly, shingles is now occurring in children. It is also occurring in adults because they're not getting the natural reexposure in the community to children who are infected with chickenpox, that natural boosting of immunity over time.
Dr. Goldman's findings have corroborated other independent researchers who estimate that if chickenpox were to be nearly eradicated by vaccination, the higher number of shingles cases could continue in the U.S. for up to 50 years; and that while death rates from chickenpox are already very low, any deaths prevented by vaccination will be offset by deaths from increasing shingles disease. Another recent peer-reviewed article authored by Dr. Goldman and published in Vaccine presents a cost-benefit analysis of the universal chicken pox (varicella) vaccination program. Goldman points out that during a 50-year time span, there would be an estimated additional 14.6 million (42%) shingles cases among adults aged less than 50 years, presenting society with a substantial additional medical cost burden of $4.1 billion. This translates into $80 million annually, utilizing an estimated mean healthcare provider cost of $280 per shingles case.
Source
But never mind; anyone questioning the safety or wisdom of any vaccine is a wingnut, right?
It is simply not relevant. Do you have any objection to Barret's claims about Mercola?
Purpledawn and I explained the labelling issue to you. If that's the best he can do to discredit Dr. Mercola then it's a pretty lame attack. The best you seem to be able to do is try to ad hom him to death.
I want to see all treatments, whether herbal or synthetic, treated exactly the same., as I have said about a hundred times on this thread. I want them trialled and proved effective. I want all their side-effects to be studied. This is what happens in the pharmaceutical industry.
I don't completely disagree with this. One problem is that almost all herbs and vitamins are not patented, so they will earn miniscule amounts for their manufacturers as opposed to, say, blockbuster drugs; this means that in many cases small-scale manufacturers will not be able to pay for years worth of clinical trials. Nor do I believe clinical trials are necessary for many of these substances. I really would like to see clinical trials establish the effects of some herbs so that they are not just hearsay, but who will pay?
You seem to think that pharmaceutical clinical trials catch all side effects, which is not true, otherwise class action lawsuits against drug companies for drug damage would not exist. Many doctors dismiss, or give little weight to, patients' reports of side effects, let alone report them themselves. A good example of this is sexual dysfunction induced by SSRIs. Most manufacturers of these claim that the incidence is low, but the reality is probably rather different, which would in part be due to patients not wanting to divulge this embarrassing information to their doctors. I've seen estimates from 10% to 90%. Who is right?
How do you know that Zyprexia causes akathisia? Did a herbalist tell you? No, the drug companies test their products.
Zyprexa is an antipsychotic medication. These types of medications are known to cause akathisia and other distressing side effects. The diabetes link was not discovered until people already taking the drug after FDA approval contracted the disease. You can read all about this debacle here. This isn't the worst of the lot; you might have heard of Vioxx.
So your response to my source that there were no deaths from dietary supplements in 2008 is to cite a single obscure case from Singapore with a herb most people have never heard of, let alone used? You'll need to try harder than that.
I asked you to cite the monkey study. You responded with Wakefield, who says this;
quote:
It was never done
You have misread. Look again:
The rhesus macaque, an old world monkey is one of those primates and so we decided some years ago, eight or so years ago, to do the study that had never been done.
To take the vaccine schedule, what happens in the real world if we expose these infant primates to what kids get between the age of day one and preschool boosters, the vaccine schedule in the 1990s with thimerosal in it.
He was saying that the study had never been done previously and that he was attempting to rectify this. By the way, do you not have any problem whatsoever with the chairman of a company that publishes several major scientific journals, also having a place on the board of a major drug manufacturer? What happens when studies are completed and peer reviewed that put that company's drugs in an unfavourable light? There is a conflict of interest. I am concerned about this. It is a problem in the FDA as well.
Then get back to the original point. Tell me why we should even begin to suspect that MMR is linked to autism.
And yet again, I never claimed that it was. I simply gave a link to Dr. Wakefield's side of the story because I believe in listening to both sides in order to formulate a balanced opinion.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 168 by Granny Magda, posted 04-14-2010 9:31 AM Granny Magda has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 179 by Granny Magda, posted 04-14-2010 3:56 PM Kitsune has replied

  
Apothecus
Member (Idle past 2410 days)
Posts: 275
From: CA USA
Joined: 01-05-2010


Message 178 of 209 (555616)
04-14-2010 2:12 PM
Reply to: Message 174 by Buzsaw
04-14-2010 10:53 AM


Re: Not the Question
Hey Buz.
You're oversimplifying, Apothecus, without citing the nutritional elements of the Scripts regimes.
Fixed Message 167 for you.
As they say, "it don't make no nevermind" to my position on the whole, Buz. My point is that all of these "alternative" therapies may, from either "mind over matter" effects on mental and/or emotional well being or possible actual physical effects, exert some benefit. I say this while openly describing some of them (I said some, Buz) as hoo-haw at best.
It's great that you support integrated therapy, Buz. But when you make statements like this in response to Coragyp's post:
Buz writes:
No alternative suppliments are a silver bullet for cancer. Going at it naturally would require a very stringent and well guided regimen. Also, it depends on how advanced the cancer was before beginning any program. There comes a point where nothing outside of a miracle will be able to bring remission or cure.
... it makes me think you would never support mainstream therapies for any situation as primary treatment. I'm talking chemotherapy, Buz. I know, it's probably anathema to you to consider this, but what if it were your wife and the physician stated it was either chemo or 3 months? Would you resort to prayer and woo? Or would you truthfully, as you state, support therapy integrated with mainstream and alternative therapies, as I'd support? I'm just wondering, because quite frankly, your statements are confusing and somewhat contradictory.
Have a good one.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 174 by Buzsaw, posted 04-14-2010 10:53 AM Buzsaw has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 185 by Buzsaw, posted 04-18-2010 12:29 PM Apothecus has not replied

  
Granny Magda
Member
Posts: 2462
From: UK
Joined: 11-12-2007
Member Rating: 4.0


Message 179 of 209 (555629)
04-14-2010 3:56 PM
Reply to: Message 177 by Kitsune
04-14-2010 1:47 PM


Re: Alt med and vaccines
Hi Kitsune,
I guess that relegates this to the realm of meaningless anecdote for you so I will move on.
I see you understand my position perfectly.
If you want to imply that the GMC is somehow unfair, cite a proper documented example. If not, don't make unsupported accusations.
I'm a lot better than I was; I can work and look after my child. And I have not exhausted the different angles to this by any means.
And I wish you good luck. My concern is that you seem to attribute this improvement to alt-med, when in truth you, don't know the details of cause and effect. Nor do you know with any certainty that you might not be better off today had you stuck to conventional therapies. You might have naturally improved anyway. That's why I keep saying that personal anecdotes are worthless.
Surely you understand that it is invalid to draw wider conclusions from limited personal experience? You are not Buzsaw. Surely you can see what I'm getting at here?
You did what worked for you, others do what works for them.
Outrageous! Please cite me a single case of a child with nefrotic syndrome being treated with alt-med. You ain't gonna find find one, unless it's one of those "Idiots kill their kid by denying life-saving medicine" stories.
Coconut oil has greatly helped some people
Citations or it never happened.
If you do have a sizeable knowledge base, you have not yet demonstrated it here. You seem very angry about the subject.
I am somewhat angry yes. What annoys me is that you post a video where is known quack is interviewed in a completely uncritical manner by another known quack. You promote vaccine scaremongering, but you refuse to back it up when challenged. If you can't or won't back up the vaccine-denialism that Wakefield and Mercola are selling, you shouldn't bring it here. This is, in case you have forgotten, a debate site, not Youtube.
I am angry about alt-med because conventional medicine, the same kind that you label "allopathy", saved my life and I don't like seeing people like Wakefield and Mercola denigrate it.
I can't (demonstrate a link between MMR and autism} at this time, and I didn't say there was one.
If you can't demonstrate a link between MMR and autism, you should not be promoting the fawning interviews with those who suggest that there is a link. It's dangerous, it promotes scaremongering and it helps induce parents to deny their children vaccines.
Remember, it's not really Wakefield who is to blame for the MMR scare and its effects. It's the media. It's the alt-med websites, like Mercola's, that promoted the theory. They are the ones who spread the panic. they are the ones who made this a widespread health panic. When Wakefield initially published his case series report, he garnered little attention. Only when the media and caught wind of the story did it blow up into a panic.
By promoting Wakefield in such an uncritical interview, you are adding more fuel to an already blazing fire.
Does that mean, in your apparently polarised way of thinking, that I have to believe that the MMR is 100% safe? If vaccines were as safe as you seem to believe, then why does the US have a vaccine adverse event reporting system (which the UK does as well)?
No, of course not. They do have side effects, almost all drugs do, whether herbal or synthetic. Their side effects however are much less serious than measles, mumps or rubella.
The question you should be asking is "Why is there no Herbal adverse effect reporting system?" Why is alt-med lacking in such systems of oversight? We know that herbals can be dangerous and that few people report herbal usage to their doctors. Surely herbalism should be subject to the same rigorous standards of safety as any other form of medicine? Wouldn't that lead to better, safer service?
If such oversights were in place for alt-med, as I have called for from page one of this thread, I would be much happier for people to be using them.
How does the medical establishment know that the only way to fight cancer is surgery, chemotherapy, or other invasive or harmful procedures?
They don't. You just made that up.
Do they know how it actually occurs or why it grows?
Yes. And no. Do you actually think that "cancer" is a single entity? It is slightly more complicated than you are portraying it. Some forms are well understood and others not.
Anyway, does Mercola know "why it grows"? No. This is more irrelevant waffle.
Note that Dr. Mercola will not suggest to anyone that they should try any of the approaches he puts on his website exclusively, but he is offering possibilities.
Ah yes, the Glenn Beck defence. "I'm just asking questions! I'm exploring the possibilities!" Did Joe Mercola rape and murder a young girl in 1990? I'm just asking questions!
Until someone actually pays to do a study of the health effects of baking soda, then it is a harmless substance that I see no problem with trying.
Unless someone does a study on the reputed healing powers of baking soda, it is irrelevant to discuss it. Unproven is unproven. I think that anyone offering medical advice over the internet has an ethical duty to restrict themselves to what can be proven.
In my experience...
In your experience... which is no doubt exhaustive.
When I debated about this before and listed effects of prescription meds, including deaths, I was told that these were "insignificant" because the percentages were small compared to the people who were helped (which was also unsubstantiated).
Bullshit. I said nothing of the kind. I particularly object to your use of quotation marks around the word "insignificant", a word I have not used before in this thread.
My argument is that conventional medicines undergo extensive trialling and assessment to ferret out any ill effects. Herbals and alt-meds do not. That is the difference. With conventional medicine, great care is taken to ensure that the benefits outweigh the risks, because when your products actually possess active ingredients there will almost always be risks. I only want the same care to be taken with all medicines, or they have no right to be described as medicines at all.
By the way, measles kills. The MMR vaccine does not.
Why am I concerned? Because more and more vaccines are added to the immunization program and no one is studying the effects of the combined vaccines.
Except that this is not true;
quote:
Randomized trial on the safety, tolerability, and immunogenicity of MenACWY-CRM, an investigational quadrivalent meningococcal glycoconjugate vaccine, administered concomitantly with a combined tetanus, reduced diphtheria, and acellular pertussis vaccine in adolescents and young adults.
Gasparini R, Conversano M, Bona G, Gabutti G, Anemona A, Dull PM, Ceddia F.
Department of Health Sciences, University of Genoa, Via Pastore 1, 16132 Genoa, Italy. gasparini@unige.it
Abstract
This study evaluated the safety, tolerability, and immunogenicity of an investigational quadrivalent meningococcal conjugate vaccine, MenACWY-CRM, when administered concomitantly with a combined tetanus, reduced diphtheria, and acellular pertussis (Tdap) vaccine, in subjects aged 11 to 25 years. Subjects received either MenACWY-CRM and Tdap, MenACWY-CRM and saline placebo, or Tdap and saline placebo. No significant increase in reactogenicity and no clinically significant vaccine-related adverse events (AEs) occurred when MenACWY-CRM and Tdap were administered concomitantly. Similar immunogenic responses to diphtheria, tetanus, and meningococcal (serogroups A, C, W-135, and Y) antigens were observed, regardless of concomitant vaccine administration. Antipertussis antibody responses were comparable between vaccine groups for filamentous hemagglutinin and were slightly lower, although not clinically significantly, for pertussis toxoid and pertactin when the two vaccines were administered concomitantly. These results indicate that the investigational MenACWY-CRM vaccine is well tolerated and immunogenic and that it can be coadministered with Tdap to adolescents and young adults.
Randomized trial on the safety, tolerability, and immunogenicity of MenACWY-CRM, an investigational quadrivalent meningococcal glycoconjugate vaccine, administered concomitantly with a combined tetanus, reduced diphtheria, and acellular pertussis vaccine in adolescents and young adults - PubMed
Anyway, MMR is a combined vaccine. One of the benefits of combining vaccines in the first place is that any interactions can be detected.
Each vaccine uses an adjuvant such as aluminum, formaldehyde, or squalene which is injected directly into the bloodstream, bypassing all natural immune defenses, in order to stimulate the production of antibodies.
Did you mean for that sentence to contradict itself? If it has bypassed the immune system, how can it produce antibodies?
You will read information that tells you that this is safe in individual vaccines (keeping in mind the fact that adverse events are still reported and compensation is paid out for damage from individual vaccines), but there are no studies that I am aware of that analyse the combined effects of the 24 (and counting) recommended vaccines in the US by age 2. According to you, because the studies aren't there, I'm being a dumb ass by questioning the safety of this.
If that were Wakefield only message, I would not object to him so strongly. But it's not. Still though, if there are dangers present, there are mechanisms in place to detect them, as you have noted. If these show a correlation between vaccination and side effects, then you have cause for concern. Until then, you are just tilting at windmills. It doesn't matter how plausible your ideas about vaccines might be if you have no information to start with. And you don't.
I have not brought up thimerosal at all apart from perhaps to mention that it is in flu shots. I am very glad to see that it is gone from other vaccines.
Noted. fair enough.
Purpledawn and I explained the labelling issue to you. If that's the best he can do to discredit Dr. Mercola then it's a pretty lame attack. The best you seem to be able to do is try to ad hom him to death.
No, you seem to misunderstand what an ad hominim is. I have not said "Joe Mercola is a dick, thus he is wrong.". That would be an ad hominim. I have said that he is a known promoter of pseudo-science and that he has behaved dishonestly in his business practices and made exaggerated claims, all of which undermines his trustworthiness as a source. It certainly makes him one of the worst people imaginable to interview a controversial figure like Wakefield.
I really would like to see clinical trials establish the effects of some herbs so that they are not just hearsay, but who will pay?
I agree that this is a likely problem, but it's just too bad. The alt-med business is not some cottage industry. It is worth billions. They can afford to do much more than they do. Ultimately, it's about ethics. It is deeply unethical to supply untested "medicines". If that is all that herbalists can do, they have no right to be in business in the first place.
You seem to think that pharmaceutical clinical trials catch all side effects, which is not true, otherwise class action lawsuits against drug companies for drug damage would not exist. Many doctors dismiss, or give little weight to, patients' reports of side effects, let alone report them themselves.
I'm not saying that systems of oversight are perfect, I'm saying that they are better than nothing. And with much alt-med, nothing is exactly what you're getting. In the UK, the Yellow Card Scheme exists solely for the purpose of correlating patient feedback about side effects in a meaningful way. No such system exists for alt-med.
Zyprexa is an antipsychotic medication. These types of medications are known to cause akathisia and other distressing side effects. The diabetes link was not discovered until people already taking the drug after FDA approval contracted the disease. You can read all about this debacle here. This isn't the worst of the lot; you might have heard of Vioxx.
That is why the Yellow Card Scheme exists. There is no such scheme for alt-med.
So your response to my source that there were no deaths from dietary supplements in 2008 is to cite a single obscure case from Singapore with a herb most people have never heard of, let alone used? You'll need to try harder than that.
First, your report only covered the USA. Second, only one person need be damaged by herbals to demonstrate that a risk exists and needs to be dealt with. Besides, I'm not saying that herbals are necessarily lethal. I expect that's very rare. But side effects need not be lethal to be of concern.Herbals are known to possess harmful side effects. They need to be placed under the same scrutiny as any other medicine.
He was saying that the study had never been done previously and that he was attempting to rectify this.
Yes, you are right about that. You're talking about this study;
http://www.rescuepost.com/...-et-al-09-primate-hbv-study.pdf
quote:
Delayed Acquisition of Neonatal Reflexes in newborn
Primates receiving A Thimerosal-containing HepatitiS B
Vaccine: influence of gestational age and Birth weight
Abstract
This study examined whether acquisition of neonatal reflexes and sensorimotor skills in newborn rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) is influenced by receipt of the single neonatal dose of Hepatitis B (HB) vaccine containing the preservative thimerosal (Th). HB vaccine containing a standardized weight-adjusted Th dose was administered to male macaques within 24 hours of birth (n=13). Unexposed animals received saline placebo (n=4) or no injection (n=3). Infants were raised identically and tested daily for acquisition of 9 survival, motor, and sensorimotor reflexes by a blinded observer. In exposed animals there was a significant delay in the acquisition of three survival reflexes: root, snout and suck, compared with unexposed animals. No neonatal responses were significantly delayed in unexposed animals compared with exposed. Gestational age (GA) and birth weight were not significantly correlated. Cox regression models were used to evaluate the main effects and interactions of exposure with birth weight and GA as independent predictors and time-invariant covariates. Significant main effects remained for exposure on root and suck when controlling for GA and birth weight such that exposed animals were relatively delayed in time-to-criterion. There was a significant effect of GA on visual follow far when controlling for exposure such that increasing GA was associated with shorter time-to-criterion. Interaction models indicated that while there were no main effects of GA or birth weight on root, suck or snout reflexes there were various interactions between exposure, GA, and birth weight such that inclusion of the relevant interaction terms significantly improved model fit. This, in turn, indicated important influences of birth weight and/or GA on the effect of exposure which, in general, operated in a way that lower birth weight and/or lower GA exacerbated the detrimental effect of vaccine exposure. This primate model provides a possible means of assessing adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes from neonatal Th-containing HB vaccine exposure, particularly in infants of lower GA or low birth weight. The mechanism of these effects and the
requirements for Th is not known and requires further study.
First, the study is on a thimerosal vaccine. MMR does not contain thimerosal, nor do any modern vaccines. The whole thing is a red herring.
Second, the monkeys were vaccinated within twenty-four hours of birth. Needless to say, this is hardly standard medical practice. Six weeks is normal. They are not comparing like with like.
Also, given the small sample size, this is not a very strong study. It can't be used to draw very strong conclusions. Nor can a study on a single vaccine (one that doesn't exist in the real world, since the Hep B vaccine does not contain thimerosal) be extrapolated to other vaccines, such as MMR.
Even with all these objections, the effects they found were not exactly Earth-shattering. They delayed the development some some reflexes by one to three days. Oh the horror!
In short, this study sucks. No wonder it was withdrawn.
By the way, do you not have any problem whatsoever with the chairman of a company that publishes several major scientific journals, also having a place on the board of a major drug manufacturer?
And what do you think of this, from the primate study;
quote:
Prior to 2005, CS and AJW {Carol Stott and Andrew Wakefield} acted as paid experts in MMR-related litigation on behalf of the plaintiff. LH {Laura Hewitson}has a child who is a petitioner in the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. For this reason, LH was not involved in any data collection or statistical analyses to preclude the possibility of a perceived conflict of interest.
She's the corresponding author! Plus the paper was funded by anti-vaccine groups like Taking About Curing Autism. Conflicts of interest are all over. What matters is the science and this study is a giant dud.
Mutate and Survive

This message is a reply to:
 Message 177 by Kitsune, posted 04-14-2010 1:47 PM Kitsune has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 180 by Kitsune, posted 04-16-2010 6:35 AM Granny Magda has replied

  
Kitsune
Member (Idle past 4300 days)
Posts: 788
From: Leicester, UK
Joined: 09-16-2007


Message 180 of 209 (555913)
04-16-2010 6:35 AM
Reply to: Message 179 by Granny Magda
04-14-2010 3:56 PM


Re: Alt med and vaccines
I really need to get this discussion more focused on a few key issues if it is to continue; it's been time-consuming and I would have left the topic by now if you had not continued to write factual errors in your posts.
You are demanding that I take the opposite polarised view to you and vigorously support Dr. Wakefield and all "vaccine deniers." I have stated several times that I simply do not maintain such an ideologically opposite stance. Of course I am aware that this is a debate site and I have been arguing the view that there are sensible questions that can be asked about vaccines, and I am not as quick as some others to put my complete trust in what the establishment claims when they still do not answer those sensible questions. I will look at 2 questions/issues about vaccines in this post.
Dr. Wakefield said, quite rightly, that no studies had been done to assess the effects of the full vaccination schedule up to age 2. Remember I said that it's one thing to assess the safety of an individual vaccine, and another to look at them in tandem, in babies and toddlers, because that's who is receiving 24 vaccines by age 1 and 36 by age 2 in the US. I compared this to polypharmacy, where doctors prescribe one or more drugs together though no studies exist to confirm the safety of such a practice (curiously, your only comment on the latter was another guffaw).
You are in error that the HepB vaccine is given 6 weeks after birth; the CDC says it should be administered at birth. As far as including thimerosal in the vaccinations in the monkey study, I see no problem with this since this is what indeed happened until recently; any person older than age 9 will have had it in their jab. I think it is reasonable to be concerned that there was a conflict of interest with one of the study administrators, and there are no doubt improvements that could be made to the study (though why the publishers decided not to go ahead with the paper is not something you or I can know, and it is speculation to say that it is because the study was rubbish). My own criticism is that what the monkeys were given was not anything close to the 36 vaccines administered over 2 years, nor was the study done over a long enough time span. What you cannot do is reject this study and subsequently claim that it is safe for everybody to receive all of those vaccines before age 2. The study you cited of 4 vaccines being administered to 11-25 year olds does not come close to addressing this issue either.
Another question I have is the issue of trust; namely, how can I trust what the CDC says? Here is a case in point. For years they insisted that thimerosal was a safe additive to vaccines. Then they removed it from all childhood vaccines. Why? But it's still in flu shots. And the CDC recommend flu shots to pregnant women, which means foetuses at all stages of development will be exposed to thimerosal. If thimerosal was (once?) safe in vaccines, who is to say that it's OK for a 4-week-old foetus? Where are the studies?
Furthermore, there is little evidence that flu shots actually do what they are supposed to do.
The Lancet
We conclude that frailty selection bias and use of non-specific endpoints such as all-cause mortality have led cohort studies to greatly exaggerate vaccine benefits. The remaining evidence base is currently insufficient to indicate the magnitude of the mortality benefit, if any, that elderly people derive from the vaccination programme.
The BMJ
Public policy worldwide recommends the use of inactivated influenza vaccines to prevent seasonal outbreaks
Because viral circulation and antigenic match vary each year and non-randomised studies predominate, systematic reviews of large datasets from several decades provide the best information on vaccine performance
Evidence from systematic reviews shows that inactivated vaccines have little or no effect on the effects measured
Most studies are of poor methodological quality and the impact of confounders is high
Little comparative evidence exists on the safety of these vaccines
Reasons for the current gap between policy and evidence are unclear, but given the huge resources involved, a re-evaluation should be urgently undertaken
So according to the CDC, I am supposed to ignore the above, believe their stories about the saving graces of flu vaccines, and inject mercury into my unborn child. My words for this are unprintable. I will stick with my vitamin C and omega-3 oil -- oh, and coconut oil -- all of which are positively healthy and beneficial for mother and baby.
To end this portion of the post about vaccines, I would like to give a link to a paper by Russell Blaylock. I've been thinking for 2 days about how to present some of the info from it and am not sure what to do. It is quite technical, and I've checked out a number of the references on Pub Med and read the abstracts; from what I can see, they are sound. You can read the paper here (it's on Dr. Mercola's site again but you will find that this article, unlike others you have mentioned, is well referenced to studies from peer reviewed journals). The main focus is on possible links between vaccination and autism, in particular looking at ways that vaccines can cause a prolonged and exaggerated immune response and how this affects the nervous system. Autism, at least for some, could be an autoimmune disease. Allergies and eczema, other autoimmune problems, are of course on the rise as well.
"Why is there no Herbal adverse effect reporting system?" Why is alt-med lacking in such systems of oversight?
Alt med is not a "system"; it's an umbrella term for non-mainstream health and medicine. Herbs and vitamins are classed as dietary supplements, so your question really amounts to, how do you report adverse effects from food or drink? Changing this system is a concern because, as I said, many companies would go out of business because they would be unable to afford years worth of clinical trials. My solution? Clear the FDA of people who are in the pockets of drug manufacturers and make it the truly independent watchdog that it was supposed to be in the first place. Then make a division in charge of overseeing the effects and the safety of dietary supplements.
If you believe that I have, for the sake of brevity, omitted to address any important points in your previous post, feel free to let me know.
Edited by Kitsune, : No reason given.
Edited by Kitsune, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 179 by Granny Magda, posted 04-14-2010 3:56 PM Granny Magda has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 181 by purpledawn, posted 04-16-2010 6:44 AM Kitsune has not replied
 Message 182 by Wounded King, posted 04-16-2010 7:26 AM Kitsune has replied
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