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Author | Topic: Expectations For The New Obama Democrat Government | ||||||||||||||||||||||
subbie Member (Idle past 487 days) Posts: 3509 Joined: |
quote: quote: Holy cognitive dissonance, Batman! Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin Franklin We see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat
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Kringle Junior Member (Idle past 4827 days) Posts: 1 From: Sunderland, UK Joined: |
quote: Some time ago, in the UK at least, there was an ethical discussion amongst medical practitioners for many years regarding the use of drugs purely for their placebo effect, sugar pills and such. The result was that it is not allowed, anything prescribed for a placebo effect is essentially illegal as it is ethically wrong, you are giving your patient something and telling them it is something else. To the topic at hand, I am eternally grateful for socialised healthcare provided for me and my family on the NHS. My gradfather has had numerous heart attacks and heart operations all covered for him under it. I myself had meningitis, and as a result of the infection i also had septicemia, at a very young age and was seriously close to death. I needed braces for three years and the care that went along with that, i underwent surgery to remedy and prevent testicular torsion, i have broken numerous bones etc etc, the list goes on and on. Also as a side to Buz: I do not mean to come off as accusing here, i just have no fondness for alternative medicines that have not undergone the rigourous clinical trials that all other drugs must go through. Also being a pharmacy student, my salary will eventually mostly come from the NHS so i have some fondness for it :) Also I would like to say hello to everyone at this site. long time reader, first time poster. Added by edit: I would also like to congratulate all the americans that are happy about the appointment of of Obama as POTUS and to all those that are against it: just wait and see please, he is not a secret muslim terrorist and he will not destroy your country. Edited by Kringle, : Quick addition
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cavediver Member (Idle past 2875 days) Posts: 4129 From: UK Joined: |
Out of interest, what would have happened to my youngest son if he had been born in the US and we had no insurance? He was born with transposition of the great arteries and required two weeks intensive care and full open heart surgery on his sixth day performed by one of the world's leading cardiologists.
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kuresu Member (Idle past 1745 days) Posts: 2544 From: boulder, colorado Joined: |
To be callous, you would have been screwed.
The movie John Q should give you a good idea. And he even had an HMO! Just goes to show, even having insurance is not a garauntee for recieving critical health care. My guess is that your son would have gotten the treatment, but you would be bankrupt to this day (not knowing how old your son is, your yearly salary, etc). I simply cannot imagine the hospital letting your son die, if nothing more than the civil suit you could potentially file against them. As a side note, litigation is one of the reasons health care costs so much. You know, malpractice. The US has been and is one of the most litigatious societies in the world, going back to before the revolution (in fact, that was one thing you brits thought you had going for you--how could a bunch of squabbling lawyers unite?). With no to little controls on who and how much you can sue, the insurance hospitals take out is unecessarily large, helping to drive up costs.
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Artemis Entreri ![]() Suspended Member (Idle past 3461 days) Posts: 1194 From: Northern Virginia Joined: |
Word, Buzzsaw. we are so fucked.
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kuresu Member (Idle past 1745 days) Posts: 2544 From: boulder, colorado Joined: |
And yet, Gates is being asked to stay on? Hmmm.
Perhaps Obama is not the radical communist muslim terrorist you may have thought he was.
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Artemis Entreri ![]() Suspended Member (Idle past 3461 days) Posts: 1194 From: Northern Virginia Joined: |
well he is still comming out of PR Illinois.
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cavediver Member (Idle past 2875 days) Posts: 4129 From: UK Joined: |
Thanks kuresu. But in this case, no standard hospital would have a hope in hell's chance of performing the operation. Within 4 hours of birth, our son was whisked on emergency evac to Guy's, a world centre for this sort of thing. How would this be dealt with, as it would require the cooperation of several entities (maternity hospital, specialist hospital, emergency evac)?
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Rrhain Member (Idle past 1104 days) Posts: 6349 From: San Diego, CA, USA Joined: |
Granny Magda writes:
quote: Incorrect. There is no such thing as the placebo effect. Pill Popping: Debunking the power of the placebo effect.
There is no excuse in refusing to subject "alternative" therapies to rigorous testing to see if they do any good and if they don't, dropping them. quote: No, it won't. No benefit will be seen. All it does is waste money. quote: Really sick people need real treatment, not fake treatment. Rrhain Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.
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Granny Magda Member (Idle past 67 days) Posts: 2384 From: UK Joined: |
Hi Rrhain,
First of all, I would like to make clear that I do not necessarily agree with the homoeopathy on the NHS, I was playing something of a Devil's advocate in my previous post because I think there is an interesting case to be made here. In fact, I'm not sure what I think. I brought it up because I think that it is an argument with some merit, even though it goes against my own instinctive hostility towards homoeopathy.
I think you are overstating that somewhat. Now I admit that I was not familiar with the Hrobjartsson paper. Having read it, it certainly does shine a new and rather damning light on the placebo effect. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. In retrospect, I was probably talking placebo up a little more than it deserves. But, no placebo effect? At all? I don't think that is quite what the study is saying. They do say that the placebo effect doesn't have any physiological effect, but they still acknowledge it in pain control, as they note here; quote: Even if the placebo effect is wholly restricted to combating pain, that is a very real benefit where it reduces patients suffering. Pain medication can have serious side effects, so if the placebo effect can help reduce the amount of medicine they need, that is a good thing. Also, the Hrobjartsson study isn't the only one out there. This meta-analysis uses much of the same data as Hrobjartsson and Gotzsche, but comes to a different conclusion. quote: From Evidence for placebo effects on physical but not on biochemical outcome parameters: a review of clinical trials by Meissner, Distel and Mitzdorf, 2007 The full text is available here. Another recent study claimed to find a host of sub-groups of placebo type effects. Here is the abstract; quote: Unfortunately only this miserable little abstract is available on-line without a fee. :mad: It's here. I'm not trying to get in to a game of your-study-my-study ping-pong here, I'm just trying to point out that the issue is far from done and dusted. Personally, I think I'll reserve judgement for a while, not least because the meta-analyses you and I linked to are based on trials that were not primarily concerned with the placebo effect itself. Some trials that do look directly at placebo are needed I think.
I disagree. The placebo effect does seem to exist with regards to pain. Much of what doctors do is not curative, but merely palliative. If the placebo effect can help lessen someone's pain or discomfort, I call that a real benefit, even if it is primarily happening in their imagination.
I couldn't agree more. The problem is that doctor's surgeries are beset by people who are not really sick or only trivially so. That's fine at a private clinic, but not so good in a tax-funded healthcare system that is stretched to capacity. What's more, doctors are often unable to do anything for a patient with a chronic complaint beyond providing a sympathetic ear and a shoulder to cry on. That is one thing that CAM practitioners tend to be quite good at. Don't get me wrong; the first port of call for someone who is unwell should always be a doctor. There is no way I trust some ridiculous homoeopath to do triage. I do think though that they might be able to take some of the hypochondriacs and other time-wasters away from doctors waiting rooms whilst still giving them the help they need (even though a hypochondriac's latest disease may be imaginary, their distress is very real and they do deserve help). Having said all of this, I'm still pretty hostile to CAM treatments on the NHS, just for different reason than the ones you give above. I think that providing these treatments on the NHS gives them an undeserved veneer of respectability that helps prop up the wider CAM market and mostly for that reason, I am, on balance, against it. I think. I just think that the placebo argument is an interesting one, with some merit, even if it is restricted to subjective symptoms. Mutate and Survive. "The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade
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kuresu Member (Idle past 1745 days) Posts: 2544 From: boulder, colorado Joined: |
Well, if this is any indication, it seems like we're in for four years of bad jokes.
It also seems like Obama doesn't really appreciate digs. Still, on the plus side, gitmo trials are getting shut down, the executive order shutting down gitmo will be signed thursday, and already Obama and the military and related personnel are discussing the new plans for Iraq and Afghanistan. It's finally sinking in that he's president. Wow.
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Huntard Member (Idle past 1527 days) Posts: 2870 From: Limburg, The Netherlands Joined: |
According to this article, President Obama has denied the people captured and placed in a makeshift prison camp in Afghanistan a right to trial.
This brings up up two questions. For those "pro" Obama: What do you think of this? And for Buz: Were you wrong about him? I hunt for the truth What you can do in my country and get away with: Softdrugs? Legal! Yep, only one way down for us!
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dronestar Member Posts: 1394 From: usa Joined: |
Hi Huntard,
In the thread "On this day, let us all be proud of America", Message 217 wrote that Obama said he would draw down troops, halt torture, and stop acting like a patronizing world cop. On the contrary, I gave evidence (message 219) that the foreign policies of Bush would continue under Obama. Indeed, since that post I can add to my list: 8. Torture: Obama's legal loopholes MAY allow some torture. 9. Increase troops: Afghanistan troop increase against President Hamid Karzai demands: 10. Policy of invoking state secrets: 11. Continued shipping of illegal weapons to Israel: Regarding foreign policy, that any Amercian can assert that Democrats are "far and away better" than Republicans (or vice versa) proves that the American voter is indifferent to facts and are apathetic to other's suffering. Edited by dronester, : clarity Edited by dronester, : addition Cogito, ergo Deus non est
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Buzsaw Inactive Member |
It appears that we need to get the focus back on the OP list as follows. I've placed a dash on the ones which I see as on track as per the policies of the president and his cabinet. There's a question mark on a couple which are likely but questionable.
Perhaps in the space we have left, members would cite items on the list which you particularly wish to address. It's easy to get off topic if we go too in depth into any one of the items.
BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW. The immeasurable present eternally extends the infinite past and infinitely consumes the eternal future.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 283 days) Posts: 16112 Joined: |
I'm glad that I don't have to live in your imagination.
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