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Poster: Akamatsu
Subject: Re: Do we place too much trust in scientists and doctors?

To a certain degree, but remember medicine is the way it is for a reason. Everything is thoroughly tested, especially when it comes to something as serious as kemo. Herbal medicine is still largely untested, and more often then not has nothing more then a placebo effect.

Is cancer something you really want to gamble with?

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Akamatsu said:

Herbal medicine is still largely untested, and more often then not has nothing more then a placebo effect.

Is cancer something you really want to gamble with?

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In order to heal someone you need to understand an underlying mechanism of disease. This is something western medicine is clueless about, and it's what TCM is all about.

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Cracka_X said:

you can't put a patent on an herb but you can make a synthetic chemical that is a very small fraction of the potency of that herb and sell it for a fortune... This is capitalism, not Chinese medicine vs western medicine.

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Seuss said:

It amazes me that somebody will doubt a board certified medical professional while trusting some random yoyo that claims to have mystical healing powers or knowledge of herbs that will cure illness. I'm not claiming that all medical professionals are good, nor am I claimnig that there aren't any medicines in nature that have yet to be discovered by modern science/medicine. I am faulting those that recommend the hedge doctor, faith healer, etc, over the board certified medical professional.

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Lily_Morgan said:

OK, few comments:

1) It's Hodgkin's disease. 

2) The state can't compel anyone to do anything medically.  The reason this is going to trial is because the kid is a minor and they want to make sure his parents hippy behavior isn't causing him to risk his life.

3) No shit he's going to think that chemo almost killed him.  It's poison.  If you inject poison into your body it probably won't feel too good.

4) Cancer is a mutation of your body.  You kind of have to kill it.  Do you really think that herbal medicine is going to kill a genetic mutation? 

5) This kid is risking his life because that chemotherapy made him nauseous and in pain for a few months.  That pain is NOTHING compared to what he will feel while he is dying from the cancer if he goes off of his treatment.

I'm a little surprised that you guys are questioning a doctor's professional opinion.  Chemotherapy has helped THOUSANDS of people get through cancer.  Cancer isn't something that can be cured, but it can be put into remission with chemo, which has been through YEARS of testing.  And not just lab animal tests, but people as well.

And for the people who are bashing drug trials - these drugs get put into pharmacies after about 10 years of lab studies.  The only real way to see how a drug is going to affect people is to give it to them under normal circumstances (i.e. they'll forget to take it sometimes, they drink with it, smoke with it, etc.) and just let them take it for extended periods of time.  Unfortunately, since doctors are trying to cure diseases as quickly as they appear, they can't just wait around for 20-25 years to see if someone's blood pressure is going to skyrocket because of this medicine.  They just have to determine that it is safe ENOUGH, and then try and kill some illnesses.

And who am I to say all of this?

I'm a doctor.

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Said the doctor..

psilocyberin said:

2)then that would be a case of negligence, which I am pretty sure isn't even mentioned in this case. Also, I would like to direct your attention to the many, many cases involving mandatory consumption of drugs like Ritalin, where children were taken away from their parents under the guise of "negligence" because they refused to place their kids on amphetamines.
The state can and has mandated forced consumption of drugs to children.

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Lily_Morgan said:

4) Cancer is a mutation of your body. You kind of have to kill it. Do you really think that herbal medicine is going to kill a genetic mutation?

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trendal said:

For comparison, in some of the African countries that still don't have readily available access to modern medicine....the human life expectancy is still only 37. This is what a lack of modern medicine looks like.

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trendal said:

The Chinese had advanced medicine for their time, but it doesn't come close to the abilities of modern medicine.

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RRRR said:

Cite a case from 2004 on...

I'm pretty certain that hasn't occurred ever since the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) was legislated.

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my mother was personally threatened by a school to put me on ritalin many years back, and was told that if she didnt, i would be taken away and put in the care of the state, so it isn't just a few random cases, it atleast WAS a widespread problem, and im almost positive it still goes on.

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Big Pharma is making a ton of money from selling these drugs for off-label use on kids. A report in the April 24, 2005, Columbus Dispatch, found that 40,000 children aged 6-18 who were covered by Medicaid were prescribed psychotropic drugs: 31 percent of the children were in foster care, and 22 percent were in juvenile detention. Medicaid spent $65.5 million for drugs used primarily as "chemical restraints," according to Encarnacion Pyle in her series “Drugged into Submission” in the Columbus Dispatch.

According to FDA estimates, 11 million antidepressant prescriptions were written in 2003 for under 19-year-olds, representing a 27 percent increase in three years.

The sale of ADHD drugs also skyrocked in 2003. In 5 to 9-year-old children, their use increased 85 percent, and, in preschoolers, usage was up 49 percent, according to Medco Health Solution’s, 2004 Drug Trend Symposium.

Overall, sales of psychiatric drugs totaled $26.7 billion in 2004, according to NDC Health Corp, a Georgia-based health information firm.

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Seuss said:

> 5000 years of anecdotal evidence is pretty well tested.
Not at all. How long did people believe the earth was flat before it was shown otherwise?

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Viveka said:

If you get in a car crash, break a limb, bleed internally or something immediately traumatic and visceral like that, you'd surely want to have access to the best "western medicine".  But for any sort of chronic problem that isn't life-threatening, western doctors are basically clueless.

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And I would say not even "life threatening", but "immediately life threatening".  Most if not all chronic problems are a mystery to western medicine.  And things like headaches or canker sores, forget about it.

Wasteland said:

And of course he would think chemotherapy almost killed him, that shit is rough (I have a few friends going through it). Heavy doses of radiation and chemical boosting leaves you feeling tired and in pain.

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Of course it almost killed him. Heavy doses of radiation and chemical boosting probably harm the body, which is exactly why they utilize such. Its a game of finding out who blinks first, the body, or cancer... isn't it?

Forced radiation, how not surprising.

While we're at it, let's chug down some fucking flouride, eh?


Peace.

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These 5000 years of history are based on reliable, reproducible observation. That's science.

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Then a week later you ate it again and it did the same. Then someone else ate it and it did the same. And then someone else, and so on. Wouldn't you believe that that plant caused an increase in heart rate?

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Seuss said:

Scientific method: principles and procedures for the systematic pursuit of knowledge involving the recognition and formulation of a problem, the collection of data through observation and experiment, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses

The scientific method facilitates science. You are ignoring the method of science and claiming that observations equal science. This is simply not true. Observation, by itself, is not enough to reach a sound, scientific, conclusion.

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LunarEclipse said:

The wierd thing is that my dad has a PhD and is supposedly concerned about what he puts into his body yet trusts doctors and drugs enough to do exactly what they tell him without question. I have struggled like hell to try to inject a little second opinion let's Google the drug first before you take it attitude and it's been helping but not enough.

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LunarEclipse said:

I think because he was/is meticulous and professional and thorough that he expects others to be the same.  Or maybe it was growing up in the "do as you are told" era he did.  Or maybe people just place too much trust in scientists and doctors...

(Did you like how I ended with the post title?) 

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