Home | Community | Message Board
You are not signed in.
Sign In New Account
Forum Index Search Posts Trusted Vendors Highlights Galleries FAQ User List Chat Store Random Growery

MushroomMan Mycology
This site includes paid links. Please support our sponsors.

General Interest > Philosophy, Sociology & Psychology
Threaded Mode Threaded  Previous topic Previous  View all topics Index  Next topic Next 

Welcome to the Shroomery Message Board! You are experiencing a small sample of what the site has to offer. Please login or register to post messages and view our exclusive members-only content. You'll gain access to additional forums, file attachments, board customizations, encrypted private messages, and much more!

Shop: Unfolding Nature Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order   Myyco.com Isolated Cubensis Liquid Culture For Sale   Sporeworks.EU Spores for European Microscopy

Jump to first unread post Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 |  [ show all ]
Do we place too much trust in scientists and doctors?
    #5900701 -

I was going to post this in the politics forum, but I wanted to take this on a different angle.

Right now, there is a story in the news which deals with a 15 year old (or so) who has hotchkins disease. He has tried chemotherapy once, and feels that it almost killed him.

Now he wishes to try holistic remedies, and his parents back him up 100%. His name is "Starchild" i believe, so you can imagine how hippie his parents are.

Not that the social status of his parents matters.

So, now, the state he lives in, has ORDERED him to get chemotherapy treatment. Luckily, his lawyer has managed to get this delayed, but now THE ISSUE IS GOING TO TRIAL!

Where does the state get off thinking it can control choice that much? Here is a situation where no one is being hurt, the child isn't being neglected, the parents are good parents. Why does the state feel the need to step in?

ah! here is the answer: doctors say so.

hm..... granted, doctors and advanced technology/studies have helped society and humanity extend and prolong miserable lives, and on a very outside chance they have been able to actually improve the quality of life and wellbeing.... but where do we draw the line?
can anyone here say that modern doctors are 100% correct about everything? is their diagnosis and opinion flawless?

I don't mean just one doctor, I mean the entire medical profession.... can we really put so much trust into their "professional" advice that we would remove our personal choice or path to recovery?

just remember how often the medical field has been, and continues to be, wrong: from drilling holes in peoples heads for headaches to heart-attack inciting drugs.

what do you think would happen if this kid chose not to seek any form of remedy? would there still be a problem? Do you think, that just maybe, this is an offensive strike against holistic remedies, hosted by medical lobbyists?

Edited by psilocyberin (07/26/06 12:42 AM)

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Do we place too much trust in scientists and doctors? [Re: SneezingPenis]
    #5901139 -

I would say yes, too much trust is placed in doctors definitely, and probably too much in scientists. We are on this never-ending path to "more" and "better", and these are the people who can and will get us most of the way. Thanks, but let me off while I still can.

It just about killed me to go to the student nursing center two weeks ago. I had some, virus or sinus infection, I don't know. I took some pills which were nothing more than a prescribed combination of two OTC brand "medications". I don't go to doctors (of any type anymore) unless it is absolutely necessary or can't get my family off my back.


--------------------
channel your inner Larry David

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Do we place too much trust in scientists and doctors? [Re: demiu5]
    #5901149 -

I don't think we place too much trust in doctors and scientists, because both have established reliable studies in health and medicine, and are frequently backed up by peer-reviewed journals and experiments.

We do, however, place a significant and normally unfounded trust in medications. Too often lazy doctors just shove patients on the easiest and most common prescription.

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.

But, it helps millions.


--------------------
The Mad Shroomer said:
People are always promising the apocalypse. They never deliver. :frown:

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Do we place too much trust in scientists and doctors? [Re: demiu5]
    #5901156 -

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?

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Do we place too much trust in scientists and doctors? [Re: Akamatsu]
    #5901237 -

"we" do, but "I" don't (in response to topic)


--------------------
No statements made in any post or message by myself should be construed to mean that I am now, or have ever been, participating in or considering participation in any activities in violation of any local, state, or federal laws. All posts are works of fiction.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Do we place too much trust in scientists and doctors? [Re: SneezingPenis]
    #5901458 -

Doctors are almost as unreliable as holistic medicine.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Do we place too much trust in scientists and doctors? [Re: kotik] * 1
    #5901477 -

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.

On a side note, I feel the courts have no place sticking their fingers into the running of a family. If a family wants to try and win the darwin award by sending their children to a witch docter, then by all means...


--------------------
Just another spore in the wind.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Do we place too much trust in scientists and doctors? [Re: Akamatsu]
    #5901495 -

Quote:
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?




Yes, modern medicine is what it is for many reasons. Greed of the doctors and pharmaceutical companies resulting in massive overprescription of often contraindicated drugs, and widespread medicare and insurance abuses from the continued greed.

The current FDA new drug review system where the pharmaceutical companies pay for the review is a sham. Honest researchers who have concerns about the serious side effects of various drugs routinely have pressure put on them by FDA management to tow the line and approve the drug anyway. Some of the researchers have even been fired for trying to to an honest job and either not approve a particular medication with life threatening side effects or at the least to note those side effects. Look into Phen-fen which was approved by the FDA in the U.S. even after serious heart problems with it were occuring in Europe.

Lipitor and the cholesterol reducing drugs IMO are a ticking time bomb. The side effects of nerve damage and resulting muscle weakness are so severe in many that they have willingly discontinued the drugs on their own volition. Yet, the drug companies have been able to call such side effects "rare".

As for herbal medications vs. prescription drugs, the fact is that a huge number of medications are the result of refining a plant that the shamans in the rain forest have known about for centuries to cure x condition into a pill. Because the shaman culture is fading out, the drug companies have lost much of that resource in "finding" new drugs.

The misuse of antibiotics by doctors who prescribe them for what likely is a viral infection and therefore the antibiotic is useless to attack has resulted in highly antibiotic resistant bacteria that in some cases have become resistant to ALL current antibiotics including Vancomycin.

The forcing of any parent by the state to treat their children's disease in a particular manner is particularly disturbing to me. For many cancers, current chemotherapy treatment is not effective in curing the cancer or increasing the patient's life expectency. Worse, chemotherapy in most cases is quite painful and debilitating to the patient. Would you want your child to be forced by the state to suffer with not only an incurable terminal cancer but the additional suffering brought about by an ineffective painful treatment? Also, will the state be paying for this forced treatment? If they are not, will the state force the parents to pay for the treatment and arrest them or incarcerate them if they do not?


--------------------
Anxiety is what you make it.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Do we place too much trust in scientists and doctors? [Re: Akamatsu]
    #5901504 -

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?


5000 years of anecdotal evidence is pretty well tested. That's how long chinese herbal medicine has been around. And it's not faith healing or spiritually guided like most people think, it's science. It's just not western science based on western chemistry and biology. If you don't think it's scientific you either don't know anything about traditional chinese medicine or you don't know the definition of science. TCM is logical science. It has helped me with migraines, my mother with skin problems and menopause, and my father with cancer. Western scientists are mislead by corporate interest and narrow visioned research. Most western treatments focus on symptoms. Cancer is a symptom. 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.

Edit: I felt I should mention I think most herbal treatments in the USA are uninformed. They are used just like pharmiceuticals which creates no benefit. Herbs are not effective because they are "natural". If you are going to a take one herb for this or another for that, you might as well take western drugs.


--------------------
Nothing you can know that isn't known.
Nothing you can see that isn't shown.
Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be.
It's easy.
All you need is love.
- The Beatles

Edited by tallgreen (07/26/06 10:12 AM)

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Do we place too much trust in scientists and doctors? [Re: SneezingPenis]
    #5901513 -

wow that's wild. I can't believe the state would come in and do something like that.

the AMA has gotten pretty out of control and there's a lot that the chinese have to offer... Too bad for communism to wipe out a great generation that would've tremendously contributed to the practice of chinese medicine.

Quote:
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.


you can't say something like that referring to western medicine as a bunch of idiots.

Ultimately, you have to figure out who is funding what. The prescription companies. There are many plausible cures that doctors have sitting in their file cabinet because the schools they research for are funded by certain prescription companies and if you don't research what they want then you're out of a job.

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.


--------------------
The best way to live
is to be like water
For water benefits all things
and goes against none of them
It provides for all people
and even cleanses those places
a man is loath to go
In this way it is just like Tao        ~Daodejing

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Do we place too much trust in scientists and doctors? [Re: Cracka_X]
    #5901533 -

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.


My point is that people are looking for a "cure", and that it doesn't work that way. We are not perfect machines that gets an occasional wrench on the gears. Disease arises because of causes(Edit: causes being general dysfunction in the body, not pathogenic). Unless you work with the cause you will never control the disease. Finding a single chemical or an herb to cure a disease is impossible. It is much more complex than that particular problem the patient and doctor are concerned about. When someone has cancer it is related to their entire body, all parts, not just the cancerous cells running rampant.

So you are right, capitalism is the direct culprit here, but I'm taking another step back and saying, the treatment is not a good way of doing things anyway. It's ignorance upon ignorance. I guess I'm responding to people thinking herbal medicine is completely BS.


--------------------
Nothing you can know that isn't known.
Nothing you can see that isn't shown.
Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be.
It's easy.
All you need is love.
- The Beatles

Edited by tallgreen (07/26/06 10:22 AM)

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Do we place too much trust in scientists and doctors? [Re: tallgreen]
    #5901619 -

I was going to edit my post but forgot about it.

I agree with you that a problem should be looked at as a whole... or holistic medicine.

This may not be cancer but I remember having some agonizing muscle pain in my back. I had the trainers look at it and they gave massages which were temperary relief and ice and stim, which I think are bullshit for all the school they went through. My coach, who is the most awesome coach in the world and has opened my eyes to so many things, works on me but directs a lot of attention to places other than where the pain is. I don't have anymore pain and my body is doing extremely well. I've liked this "ART" Active Release Therapy and holistic approach to the body so much that I want to become an Osteopath.... a DO instead of an MD but they focus more on a holistic approach to medicine.

But yes, we're(AMA) trying to find a cure when that cure doesn't really do anything but appease the pain and cause a dramatic imbalance in the body.


--------------------
The best way to live
is to be like water
For water benefits all things
and goes against none of them
It provides for all people
and even cleanses those places
a man is loath to go
In this way it is just like Tao        ~Daodejing

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Do we place too much trust in scientists and doctors? [Re: Cracka_X]
    #5901649 -

I'm glad you see my point.  I'm used to people shunning my perspective, but I try anyway hoping people will respond with awareness as you have.  If you're interested, check out "The web that has no weaver: understanding chinese medicine".  It gives a great description of what chinese medicine is from a western perspective, it opened my eyes to that world.  A holistic way of thinking has helped me and my whole family.  I still use western pharmaceuticals.  Ibuprofen is a god send for pain when you need relief within the hour.  And antibiotics save lives.  But TCM is a stepping stone to optimal health.  The book:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0809228...6671110?ie=UTF8


--------------------
Nothing you can know that isn't known.
Nothing you can see that isn't shown.
Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be.
It's easy.
All you need is love.
- The Beatles

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Do we place too much trust in scientists and doctors? [Re: tallgreen]
    #5901756 -

The order has been lifted.
http://www.forbes.com/entrepreneurs/feeds/ap/2006/07/25/ap2903291.html

"A social worker asked a juvenile court judge to require the teen to continue conventional treatment.."

Someone thought they were doing the right thing.


--------------------
Nothing you can know that isn't known.
Nothing you can see that isn't shown.
Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be.
It's easy.
All you need is love.
- The Beatles

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Do we place too much trust in scientists and doctors? [Re: Seuss]
    #5902278 -

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.




in response to this post, and some of the other ones: I am not advocating holistic medicine, nor am i making a judgement call between holistic and western medicinal practices.
I am glad to see that we are all on the same page about reserving the freedom of choice and not thinking forcible radiation treatment is in any way a sane action.

But what does Board certified really mean? In the last 50 years what advances have been truly revolutionary in regards to medicine? Basically, since penicillin, there has been nothing which truly alleves a symptom without immense adverse reactions.

Western medicine has made leaps and bounds in life extension, to the point where we can choose to sustain textbook "life" in a lump of meat and tissue, but I have seen no advancements in the general improvement of health and wellbeing, on any front of the medical field.

Frankly, I don't see where the medical community has scientifically proven to improve the quality of life in such a way as to overshadow the holistic community.

Basically, this kid has made a choice of quality of life than quantity of life, which is something I think Western Medicine has completely ignored.

"Um... Yes, we see that 49 out of 67 patients no longer suffered from symptom X with the help of Drug Z, and 47 of those 49 patients have reported bouts of gastrointestinal discomfort".......

well congratulations Western Medicine, you have succesfully relocated pain and misery to another part of the body.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Do we place too much trust in scientists and doctors? [Re: SneezingPenis]
    #5902417 -

:rofl2:

For anyone who thinks they/we would be better off without "modern medicine"......well obviously you haven't read any history lately!

The general quality of human life, at least in the first world countries, has been steadily rising for the past thousand years. The advances we have made in the last hundred years alone far outstrip everything humans have come up with in the past 10,000 years. If there is anyone who, sitting in a warm (or cool, if you have that A/C on) room and typing on a computer, thinks they would be better off living 300 years ago...you're just plain nuts. Life was short, brutal, and FULL of work (no such thing as a vacation when you work 24/7 just to feed yourself).

Enjoy living past 40? Thank modern medicine...

Enjoy having a low infant mortality rate? Thank modern medicine...(well over 1/10 children used to die in the first year of life...today that number is less than 1/100)

Or do you enjoy having your wife actually live through the process of child birth? Once again...thank modern medicine...

I could go on and on, but I won't.


Now as far as the forceful application of medicine goes...I think that is total bullshit. For the same reasons I don't think the govt should tell me what to not put in my body...I don't think they should be telling me what to put in my body (or what to do with it).


--------------------
Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free.
But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Do we place too much trust in scientists and doctors? [Re: trendal]
    #5902438 -

tell that to the children of thalidomide.


Yes, 100 to 10,000 years ago, medicine has made great strides in preventing death. But in the last 50 years, I feel that not only has western medicine become stagnant in improving the quality of life, they have actually caused greater harm through faulty research and bullshit testing standards for FDA approval.

Also, people were probably healthier 300 years ago, just because you live to be 70 doesnt mean you were healthier than someone who only lived to be 30. if you need proof, refer to Steve Prefontaine.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Do we place too much trust in scientists and doctors? [Re: SneezingPenis]
    #5902468 -

No, you're wrong. Standards today are far, far better than they were 50 years ago. In most cases, there were no standards at all. Today it takes a minimum of 5-10 years to get a drug to market.

Something like thalidomide couldn't happen with the testing proceedures drugs must go through today. That bad of an effect would be caught long before the drug makes it to market.

Remember that thalidomide happened 50 years ago, not recently.

Most of the horror-stories the media feeds you are way over-blown. Most of the time it is a very few people who turn out to have a bad reaction. It has to be such a small percentage of the total population to slip through Phase 3 trials (where thousands of volunteers take the drug).

I say most...not all. I am deeply concerned about the zeal with which modern drugs are marketed, and I think there are some cases popping up where it is clear the pharma company has ignored or directly suppressed unwanted side-effects that come up during Phase 3 trials. It may mean the FDA has to pay more attention to the testing proceedures than it does now.

Also, people were probably healthier 300 years ago, just because you live to be 70 doesnt mean you were healthier than someone who only lived to be 30. if you need proof, refer to Steve Prefontaine.

Wasn't he killed by a car crash? Modern medicine has made great strides in trauma care, and in bringing people back from the edge of death...but once someone is dead, they remain dead.

If he hadn't of had a wreck, he could easily have continued to live into his 80's. That would be modern medicine at work.

300 years ago people died in their 40's because they got too sick for their body and the limited medicine they had to fix. It was far more rare to find what we now consider seniors - they were the lucky ones who made it through their 40's without getting cancer, heart disease, diabetes, the flu, or any of the other ways of getting sick that modern medicine can cure or treat.


--------------------
Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free.
But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.

Edited by trendal (07/26/06 05:33 PM)

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Do we place too much trust in scientists and doctors? [Re: trendal]
    #5902511 -

I think you are only thinking of western life 300 years ago. There are lots of cultures like India and China that have enjoyed really sophisticated medicine that solves most medical problems going back thousands of years. If you were poor life sucked, but that's the same today. Living past 40 is not a new thing. People have been living past 100 for a very long time. It just wasn't as common because education was less common. You need to think outside the western (and 300 years ago that means European) box. Europeans have never understood the body well. Just a couple hundred years ago we were letting blood and all kinds of ridiculous shit. Many other parts of the world were not nearly as barbaric as the Europeans. And you speak of "first world" and "1000 years ago". It seems you do not know much about world history. "First world" is a very recent concept, and 1000 years ago china would have laughed at European progress in regards to health and science. Where do you think gunpowder came from? 1000 years ago Europeans were living in filth while the Chinese were living in harmony with nature. Life was definitely good in many places 300 years ago.


--------------------
Nothing you can know that isn't known.
Nothing you can see that isn't shown.
Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be.
It's easy.
All you need is love.
- The Beatles

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Do we place too much trust in scientists and doctors? [Re: trendal]
    #5902515 -

woops, you are right about prefontaine, I must be thinking of some other marathon runner who died of a heart attack at the age of 30.

Also, there is almost a catch-22 in this FDA regulation. Now, because people like you place so much trust in these trials, there is unabashed consumption of these fad drugs. Maybe the testing has become more rigorous and scientific, but it definitly doesn't show much efficacy in the shadow of the last 10 years of faulty drug history and shelf recalls.


I still have yet to see any proof where modern western medicine is more effective in increasing the quality of life over holistic medicine, and especially not in such a way as to completely shun on in favor of the other.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Jump to top Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 |  [ show all ]

Shop: Unfolding Nature Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order   Myyco.com Isolated Cubensis Liquid Culture For Sale   Sporeworks.EU Spores for European Microscopy

General Interest > Philosophy, Sociology & Psychology
Threaded Mode Threaded  Previous topic Previous  View all topics Index  Next topic Next 

Similar ThreadsPosterViewsRepliesLast post
* Eastern philosophies...
( 1 2 3 4 all )		 UnenlightenedOne 8,733 65 02/29/16 07:09 PM
by MarkostheGnostic
* I want to debate a "creation scientist".
( 1 2 3 4 ... 11 12 all )		 Phluck 17,000 232 12/01/04 04:26 PM
by Diploid
* Eastern Religions XI: Warring State Thinkers: Zhuangzi Kremlin 1,025 4 11/13/03 10:54 PM
by Kremlin
* the mindless western ape atomikfunksoldier 1,109 15 04/28/03 04:18 PM
by atomikfunksoldier
* Eastern Thought & Dope Smoking: Why are they related?
( 1 2 3 all )		 Ped 4,937 59 10/26/04 10:10 PM
by NariusFractal
* Science the ultimate tool?
( 1 2 3 4 5 all )		 Icelander 6,758 94 08/05/05 12:13 PM
by EquilibriuM
* About Scientists....
( 1 2 all )		 Sclorch 2,488 39 09/02/03 10:31 PM
by Anonymous
* Doctors create out-of-body sensations
( 1 2 all )		 SoulTech 1,490 20 09/24/03 12:40 PM
by lucid

Extra information
You cannot start new topics / You cannot reply to topics
HTML is disabled / BBCode is enabled
Moderator: Middleman, DividedQuantum
4,661 topic views. 1 members, 394 guests and 41 web crawlers are browsing this forum.
[ Show Images Only | Sort by Score | Print Topic ]
Search this thread:

Copyright 1997-2026 Mind Media. Some rights reserved.

Generated in 0.032 seconds spending 0.005 seconds on 16 queries.