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Mind Over Matter: Debunking Alternative Medicines
The New York Times ^ | July 1, 2013 | Abigail Zuger

Posted on 07/03/2013 12:49:19 PM PDT by EveningStar

When Dr. Paul A. Offit published “Autism’s False Prophets” in 2008, he elected to skip the usual round of book signings. His defense of childhood vaccinations so enraged some people who consider them a cause of autism that he was getting credible death threats.

Others might have chosen to flee the public arena after that, but not Dr. Offit, the chief of infectious diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, whose appetite for the good fight seems only to have grown. Over the last decade he has become a leading debunker of mass misconceptions surrounding infections and vaccines, and now he is taking on the entire field of alternative medicine, from acupuncture to vitamins.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: alternativemedicine; health; medicine; paulaoffit; pauloffit; scientificmedicine
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To: driftdiver
So we’ve learned more in the last 200 years than was learned in the previous 5000?

Absolutely. Just to pick one subject out of many, try comparing any pre-1814 book on astronomy to a modern one.

41 posted on 07/03/2013 1:39:34 PM PDT by Kip Russell
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To: Buckeye McFrog

Has more to do with hygiene and diet then fluoride in the water.


42 posted on 07/03/2013 1:45:47 PM PDT by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
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To: Sherman Logan

few does not equal none.


43 posted on 07/03/2013 1:46:23 PM PDT by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
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To: Sherman Logan

Yeah. I would add that my maternal ancestors who had their babies at home with midwives had much much lower mortality than those who had their babies in hospitals prior to the advent of antibiotics. I only counted one ‘country mom’ who lost her life in childbearing in the 150 years prior to 2000. And that was her first. The first baby was the litmus test apparently.

Both my parents were born at home. I asked my grandmother once why she had my mom at home, in 1941, when there was a hospital literally 2 blocks away. She got a horrified look on her face and said hospitals were death traps prior to antibiotics and nobody went there unless they were near to dying. My great aunt was a RN and was the assist at my grandmothers births prior to the doc getting there.

Antibiotics are great things. Proper sanitation ensures they’re not unnecessarily overused and invalidated via resistance mechanisms.


44 posted on 07/03/2013 1:46:34 PM PDT by Black Agnes
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To: Texan5

Absolutely. Soon alternative medicine may be the only option if the govt decides you arent worth spending money on.


45 posted on 07/03/2013 1:48:37 PM PDT by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
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To: Kip Russell

Egyptians were doing brain surgery.

Western medicine is better at some things. They are much worse at others.


46 posted on 07/03/2013 1:49:30 PM PDT by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
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To: Black Agnes

Actually, it was prior to the advent of handwashing.

Puerperal fever, the great maternal killer, was almost always a result of poor attendant sanitation.


47 posted on 07/03/2013 1:53:06 PM PDT by Sherman Logan
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To: Sherman Logan

Hospital mortalities declined significantly post introduction of sulfa drugs and even more significantly post antibiotics.

My mom was one of the first kids in this state to receive antibiotics after surgery for appendicitis.

But yeah, Semmelweis was a genius. Too bad the ‘establishment’ shunned his ideas and killed women for decades afterwards.

So much for established medical ‘consensus’ being the best guide for effectiveness.

That worked out great for the H. Pylori guys too. They nearly lost their licenses to practice with that idea. Who ever knew most ulcers might have a bacterial cause.

Good thing consensus was wrong then too. My hubby was treated for that.


48 posted on 07/03/2013 1:58:42 PM PDT by Black Agnes
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To: Buckeye McFrog

I will not drink water with flouride-I drank bottled water in the city because of it. I’ve heard that some cities are discontinuing the fluoride in their water-must be a reason. Why not stay away from the sugary stuff, brush and floss, and teach the kids to do the same? People’s teeth aren’t the government’s business, any more than what we eat or drink is...


49 posted on 07/03/2013 2:00:19 PM PDT by Texan5 ("You've got to saddle up your boys, you've got to draw a hard line"...)
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To: Black Agnes

Unfortunately, Semmelweis was also a world-class jerk.

If you’re far ahead of your time, it’s a good idea to not be so confrontational about it that people reject your ideas because they can’t stand you.

Or at least that’s my explanation for why my ideas aren’t more widely accepted.


50 posted on 07/03/2013 2:00:58 PM PDT by Sherman Logan
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To: Sherman Logan

If the science is good the presentation shouldn’t matter.

Too bad the consensus establishment minds were all petty and closed on the matter.

Too bad for all the women killed in the ensuing decades.

Having been in science for decades I can tell you that undoubtedly Semmelweis wasn’t the only egotistical jerk involved. Just ask Michael Mann about being an egotistical jerk.


51 posted on 07/03/2013 2:03:37 PM PDT by Black Agnes
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To: driftdiver

My whole family uses natural remedies-so I don’t want any of their stuff-it is already obvious from all the drug-related lawsuits that I’ll live longer without it...


52 posted on 07/03/2013 2:04:04 PM PDT by Texan5 ("You've got to saddle up your boys, you've got to draw a hard line"...)
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To: Buckeye McFrog

Flouride is a by product of aluminum production. Decades ago Alcoa didn’t have a good way to dispose of all the flouride it was producing so they convinced the government to add it to drinking water. It is definitely poisonous and should not be consumed on a regular basis. If you want to use flouride to prevent cavities use it in toothpaste or an oral rinse. Please don’t make every man woman and child in town ingest it on a daily basis.


53 posted on 07/03/2013 2:05:33 PM PDT by csmusaret (Will remove Obama-Biden bumperstickers for $10)
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To: Black Agnes

BTW, my boss came back three years ago or so from Belize with some sort of tropical infection that turned into colitis.

Tried very hard to treat it with nutrition, etc. because he didn’t like “modern medicine.” Then his colon ruptured, he had to have emergency surgery to remove the entire colon, and his heart stopped 3x on the table.

Modern medicine saved his ass.

My personal take is that the alternative stuff may often be great for maintenance, but if you’ve got something seriously wrong modern medicine is a whole lot more likely to save your life.

Look up the survival rates for wounded soldiers in various wars over the last 200 years. We think of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars as comparatively low in deaths, but the main reason is that so many are saved after wounding. Most of whom would have died in earlier wars.


54 posted on 07/03/2013 2:06:11 PM PDT by Sherman Logan
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To: Black Agnes

Doctors had this whole ego thing going then too. They were offended by being told that they themselves were the cause of childbed fever.

The problem is they were.


55 posted on 07/03/2013 2:07:33 PM PDT by Sherman Logan
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To: EveningStar

Hogwash.

When I had a whiplash, I went to the emergency room at nearby hospital, my doctor, a physical therapist as prescribed by doctor, and an acupuncturist, in that order.

The hospital X-ray tech made several mistakes, meaning I had several unnecessary X-rays and who knows how much radiation. They prescribed painkillers that were far, far too strong, knocking me unconscious unnecessarily.

The doctor prescribed other meds, with the same results.

The physical therapist made the pain worse.

The accupuncturist, an old Chinese doc, gave me two days of relief every time I saw him. A good result.

The person who eventually took the pain away was a physical therapist who was also a Feldenkrais practitioner. She did zero phys therapy and all Feldenkrais stuff...an hour of her time meant she was working on me for 55 minutes. EXCELLENT result. Pain left, more or less permanently.

A couple of years later, I had to see the insurance company doctor. He was very pleasant and thorough, wrote a report saying they should NOT pay for “ineffective” accupuncture and Feldenkrais — the ONLY things that helped. The medical racketeer, protecting others.

So, no, I’m not very interested in conventional medicine, tho someday I may need surgery or something like that, so I leave the door open. But I simply do not believe in it. And try to live in such a way that I don’t need to get into the medical merry-go-round. Do not trust BigPHarma nor BigDoc.


56 posted on 07/03/2013 2:09:08 PM PDT by Veto! (Opinions freely expressed as advice)
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To: Sherman Logan

The great things from ‘modern medicine’ are antibiotics, sterile surgical suites, blood transfusions and diagnostic equipment.

The rest is iffy at best.

You can’t ‘alternative’ medicine repairing that femoral artery ruptured in the auto accident.

Avoiding gluten and wheat related products to cure eczema that’s been plagueing you since childhood? Yup. Worked better than the zillion creams and pills every derm east of the mississippi had prescribed for 35 years. Been gluten free for 2 years now and had zero eczema.

Guess how many derms suggested my problem might be dietary intolerance?

Zero.

I want my money back.


57 posted on 07/03/2013 2:10:34 PM PDT by Black Agnes
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To: Sherman Logan

The fact that sewage lines, septic tanks and such are closed, underground, and 100+ feet away from wells/water lines, rather than open, germ-infested ditches right next to wells, vegetable gardens, etc. Also helps to keep the livestock in their own barn, detached from the house...


58 posted on 07/03/2013 2:13:36 PM PDT by Texan5 ("You've got to saddle up your boys, you've got to draw a hard line"...)
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To: Sparticus
Absolutely! Just a few hundred years ago, the majority of doctors thought that the idea that infections are caused by germs was ludicrous.

Medical knowledge has certainly improved 100-fold, at least, over the last few hundred years, but you know what hasn't improved? People. People get lazy, apathetic, and callous. That may not be a big problem when the person is a ditch digger, but when he's a doctor charged with diagnosing ailments, prescribing medicine, and performing surgery, it can lead to unpleasant things, like death.

My experience with the modern medical field, which is, at this point, unfortunately extensive, has shown me that the level of knowledge and complexity of modern medicine has outstripped the ability of the average doctor to track it and understand it properly. Thus, we get doctors prescribing the latest fad medicine, refusing to take more than 5 minutes to listen to a patient before deciding on whichever diagnosis requires the least amount of thought and effort, recommending unnecessary surgeries, sewing scalpels into people's bodies, administering contra-indicated drugs, and generally just putting in a minimum of effort. Now before some of you medical Freepers get your panties twisted - it's obvious that not every doctor does this, but there is a reason that doctors' errors kill more people every year than car accidents and gunshots.

I think that the medical profession has been falsely elevated to some mythical status, where people are expected to blindly accept whatever a guy with a medical degree says. Especially when it comes to new problems, modern medicine gets it wrong as much as they get it right. That's part of the learning process and probably can't be helped, but everyone should take the position that the primary responsibility for their health rests with themselves. Doctors are merely a tool.
59 posted on 07/03/2013 2:15:01 PM PDT by fr_freak
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To: driftdiver
Egyptians were doing brain surgery.

Yes, they were...and how successful were they compared to 21st Century doctors treating similar ailments?

Western medicine is better at some things. They are much worse at others.

Such as?

I can speak from personal experience regarding one area of medicine; I was diagnosed with stage III kidney cancer last year. I was taking my yearly physical, and there were microscopic amounts of blood in my urine. Not wanting to take a chance, my doctor had me get a C/T scan, which revealed the tumor.

I took an experimental drug (pazopanib) which shrunk the tumor by 2/3rds over the course of 3 months, and then had a partial nephrectomy (kidney removal) at the Cleveland Clinic. I had to get a partial because my other kidney, while otherwise healthy, was only 1/4 the normal size (born that way, had no idea until then).

Long story short: I'm now cancer-free, and going on a photo safari to South Africa in a month. Modern medicine works!

60 posted on 07/03/2013 2:16:20 PM PDT by Kip Russell
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