Another Child Sacrifices Himself On the Alter Of His Parents Irrationality

Absolutely it does. That's why complimentary therapy should be used to ensure the person responds well to the main treatment. A healthy diet, vitamin supplements and mental well being can't replace the treatment though, it can only be used to increase it's effectiveness.

Nobody ever considered antibiotics to be mumbo jumbo. what happened is one day Barry Marshall said "ya know, i think bacteria causes peptic ulcers" and everyone said "really? I'm not to sure about that, do you have any experimental data to back this claim up?" and Barry Marshall said "yes i do, here it is" and they said "looks like you are right".

That's a long way from what happens with alternative therapies where they say "we got magic water that cures cancer" and everyone says "are you sure?" and they say "well, no, but can't you just take our word for it?" and everyone else says "no, let do some trials..... hmm, looks like it's effectiveness is no greater than what we found in the control group taking a placebo" and the shysters say "la la i cant hear you... roll up roll up, magic water that cures cancer, just $100 a bottle, roll up roll up"

 

Treatment for something that could have been prevented if the medical establishment actually cared about our health. For someone who understands how big companies profit from war, I would expect you to understand wealth and power play a role here.. It's like someone once said about Christians, "They can be logical about everything else in their life, but somehow they're not when it comes to religion." (paraphrasing)

You're a fanatic with science and apparently a medical fanatic aswell so I don't expect you to see this. What interest do drug companies have of preventing diseases so that you rarely have to come to your doctor begging for their pill?

Hmmm, now I'll wait for the illogical apologist response for the benevolent medical establishment.

Actually they did, and no it did not at all happen like this. You put decent effort into "pretending" it did though.

I hope you know when I'm talking about alternative treatment I'm not talking about homeopathy, hundreds of therapies exist, most of which have never been tested. Marshall was funded by the Australian Medical Research Council.

 

Ideally we wouldn't get sick in the first place, but the fact is we do and it's not the fault of the "medical establishment", it's our fault, and when we do get sick we need to take effective treatment that has been clinically tested.

Absolutely i am. I owe my life to it many times over, as do you.

Well in the same breath what interest do peddlers of alternative therapy have in selling you something that works? surely if you stay sick they can sell you more of it? or does your logic only apply to the organisations you have a grudge against?

It happened more or less like that. Because in science people make claims and then are asked to prove it, regardless what that claim is, and if the evidence is there to support the claim it is accepted.

so you are just going to exclude the alternative therapies as i debunk them and then rely on vouching for the validity of the ones that haven't even been tested yet? Sounds like the most intellectually dishonest approach i have ever heard.

I think my advice to you would be - get your medicine from a doctor, not from the shop where you buy your bongs and joss sticks.

 

Now there is an analogy I get. I owe my life to the federal government, who has protected me since a youth. I therefore believe whatever Nancy Pelosi tells me.

Debunking requires research and reading comprehension. I think you can see the fundamental flaw in your argument here.

Interestingly, that statement, along with your "all homeopathy is $100 per bottle tap water sales" statement really highlight the depth of your knowledge on the subject. How could you possibly expect to debunk something you know nothing about? There are a lot of "alternative medicine" people out there who are board certified physicians. It seems most sell nothing at all, or if they sell something, it is a book containing the information they espouse.

You lazily rely on the FDA to do your research for you. Much like your allegations towards the religious, you let other people do your thinking for you, and blindly accept their answers not only as truth, but as all the truth there is. Its fanaticism at its best.

 

Some are tricksters, some are not, that's why it's important not to generalize like you're doing. I'll at least admit there are many frauds and scams in alternative health but I doubt I'll hear anything like that out of you for what I said.

Except for the fact that it didn't really happen like that at all. Claims can't be proven if there isn't the funding for it. We don't have people and organizations with excessive wealth to pay for scientific marketing.

What therapies? Homeopathy? You struck down all opposition of medical science because you figure one therapy has been "debunked"? I didn't catch you debunking it anyhow.

My advice to you would be not talk to someone has tried this advice and failed. What does someone do with a chronic disease when all medical treatment has failed and all practitioners are left scratching their head?

 

Ok, So why don't you give me a list of alternative therapies which you think are effective, what conditions they are used to treat and any trial data that shows their effectiveness. I'd particularly like to know which alternative therapies you consider to be effective for treating cancer.

You don't have to market the treatment, You just need to conduct the trials to test their effectiveness. Even if they can't afford the trials, which i doubt is the real reason they are reluctant to test them, it doesn't give them a free pass to claim they are effective.

Do i have to debunk tap water? I'll wait for you to present a list of alternative therapies which you think are effect and the reasons why. I think you have hidden behind being unspecific long enough.

If all other routes have failed then sure, suck on crystals, listen to whale song and chant as much as you like. But to suggest opting for this kind of stuff first without even trying proven effective treatments is irresponsible.


Have a look at Richard Dawkins the enemies of reason - The irrational health service.

 

Here's one that challenges the use of antibiotics.

 

That wasn't an "alternative therapy", it's a scientific discovery.

 

Lmao. It was before it became a discovery! It was a hokey pokey herb used by herbalists and healers for thousands of years.

 

Discovering a naturally occurring compound is not an "alternative therapy", if it is then you would have to admit that about half of the pills sold by drug companies are "alternative therapies" on the grounds that the compounds and molecules employed in it's active ingredients are found in plants, fish bone or pigs blood.

What you are doing now is trying to hijack treatments which are scientifically tested and proven and attaching the name "alternative therapy" to it on the grounds that it come from a plant.

 

What is herbalism?

And are you going to say that any herb that is scientifically effective is suddenly a drug? Making it impossible for an effective nondrug to exist?

 

I heard on the news at lunch that the family has been ordered to provide treatment:

http://www.attorneyatlaw.com/2009/0...did-judge-deliver-a-blow-for-families-rights/

 

Well of course firegirl, it's scientifically proven that families don't have rights. Government is the parent of your children whether you like it or not.

It's also scientifically proven that collectivism works, right stox?

 

No i'm not going to say any herb that is scientifically effective is a drug. However, the compound or molecule which causes the physiological effect is, by definition, a drug.

What will happen if the study on oregano oil proves it's effective wont be that doctors will start prescribing oregano oil, that wouldn't be particularly efficient. What will happen is the molecule or compound which causes the effect will be isolated (in this case carvacrol) and it will be either extracted or fabricated and included as a precise quantity in an application method (probably pill).

Excelent news. In nates world "rights" include being able to neglect your children, Good that this isn't the world the rest of us live in.

 

May want to reread the article..

 

Nate more goes into a clinical trial than giving it to a dozen mice. carvacrol may not be the only active ingredient in the oil, but it is an active ingredient. What will be done is the ingredient(s) which produce the effect will be isolated and reproduced. People wont be given the oil.

 

I know, by your definition, anything that is "alternative" must be tap water. Anything that is not tap water is an approved treatment. The logic of that . What is funnier still, since you brought up bones, fish bone, and pigs blood, is that the active ingredients are at times derived from cures previously handed out by "Medicine man" or "witch doctor" who you would unquestionably call a quack.

 

Thanks for bringing me into this thread, but you forgot to capitalize my name.

According to medical testimony, he has a 80%-90% chance of survival with treatment, and without it, will probably not survive more than 5 years. Given those percentages, it sounds like electing a proven treatment would be the way to go.

However...

It's disturbing to think of a human being being forced by the state to get chemo against their will. The situation is harder because he's only 13 yrs. old, he should have a voice in what medical care he receives, but he's not quite old enough to be making life decisions by himself. It would be better if there was some compromise, perhaps they could allow him to pursue the natural remedy, with the agreement to begin chemo if the cancer starts to advance? The kid doesn't want to die, I'm sure his parents love him, certainly they would all agree to that?

 

Sorry, for some reason i thought it was you who made that post.

I doubt they would. They have bought into mumbo jumbo bullshit wholesale. I don't doubt that as they were drawing the star in the sand, dripping the chicken blood on his head or arranging the crystals to maximize their "energies" potential they would be absolutely certain it would cure the cancer.... And if it doesn't, who gives a shit, he's gone to magical happy land with the invisible man in the sky now and it was all probably part of some "plan".

It is a shame that people have to be made to do something against their will, But what's even more of a shame is that some parents need to be made to do it to stop their child dying.

 

Hmmm - complex subject.

I'd agree with Stox on the issue of herbs - a conversation I'm having with my wife all the time - anything you put in your body designed to produce an effect it wouldn't normally have is by definition a drug. I do think too many people simply feel that because something is called an "herbal" that it is somehow safe, and good for you. He's also right that many compounds of synthesized drugs are simply refined, naturally occurring substances. That said, it goes the other way, too - stuff that has compounds that can help you do not only come in little tabs with "x's" and hash-marks cut across them. The key is testing, and standards. For instance, I consider it - have always considered it - grossly dangerous to make medicinal "teas" out of chinese herbs for health. Why? Because there's either nothing in the tea, no matter how much concentration of substance you have in the tea - variably made, steeped, etc. - in which case it does no good for something you need help on; or it is a powerful agent, and unlike a tablet, you have no idea how much stuff goes into your system. Yet most "prescriptions" say "make tea, drink 3x daily."

I think the state of western medicine is that it has become a victim of its own success. For instance, I'm currently being seen by a rheumatologist for long-term back problems, stemming from nerve root entrapment in several place.

I've had nothing but bozos handling my care for the last two years - all orthopedic specialists, who basically have been afraid to contravene previous physicians who've handled my care. I won't go into it but I think the very thing that has allowed western medicine to proceed to such advancements - peer review and the like - is a potential pitfall, when it means that people stop entertaining notions, methods, remedies outside their small corner of the universe, which includes their practice and collegial environment.

Bottom line, for the first time in years, I am getting somewhere - this rheumatologist is performing regular trigger point acupuncture. My first visit with him, he asked me, somewhat nonplussed, if any of the previous doctors had considered some kind of alternative path to my care, since nothing else was working. I said no. He said, and this is a quote, "doctors are too stuck in western ways..."

There is a pitfall to alternative therapies, herbs, etc., and that is what Stox has been saying - the lack of scientific method and peer review, allowing a host of quacks and their herbal/etc. crack to be released onto the market without any codified procedures, etc., to validate findings. It's getting better.

Any method should be fair game, if it helps to improve health. At the same time, any method should be scientifically assessed. At the very least, standards of efficacy, even in the absence of knowing why, should be put in place for everything. An example would be the use of acupuncture (both trigger point, and distal/"energy" or "meridian" theory acupuncture). It appears acupuncture can, and has, helped many people. Yet so far, there hasn't been (to my knowledge - I could be completely wrong) anything approaching a body of work detailing why it works. Just numerous studies showing it does work, for many people.

So, properly understood, a patient should have the right to try it. Medicine, like all imperfect sciences (because we're dealing with something variable, the human, biological organism), is a heuristic discipline, not a closed system of defined pathways each and every time. So long as the risks and the potential for success or failure are understood, this is how much of all medicine proceeds, by methods and attempts, measured against results. Ask a cancer patient struggling along - his or her oncologist tries from a host of things, each of which may or may not work.

On the tragedy of a 13 year old, with cancer, and chemo. It's also a tough choice. I do understand people's concerns with the state dictating care.

I have also seen, firsthand, the inexcusable abuse of children because parents are too dumb-ass starry eyed about their religion, political philosophy, or other things - literally - to see that the child is given proper and necessary care.

In one instance, this has endangered other children because the child had an infectious disease that was not being treated - the parents disbelieved in western medicine's attempts to "stop the body from dealing with the disease" and not only did the child get extremely, dangerously ill, but he could have made a host of other children ill as well. In such cases, I have no issue with someone stepping in to protect a child, and get him or her the necessary care.

On the issue of chemo for a child, and quality of life, god - tough call. I don't have an answer. A child suffers horribly from a treatment that likely won't help, let's say - whose voice should be heard? Certainly, as Rebecca says, the child's...a 13 year old is a conscious being, aware of his or her life, and has a right to be heard. The parents who love the child (and yes, though I haven't read the story of the chemo child, and can't, at this stage, anyway, if the parents sought crystal therapy in lieu of treatment, I'd have an issue). A doctor who is trying to save a child. I don't have any easy answer.