This is such an obviously ignorant statement, I really don't know how to respond. When those of us into alternative healing claim cure, the pharma companies yell "anecdote" as if our cures and healing have no validity because it was not double blind studied.
That was such an obviously ignorant statement, I really don't know how to respond. While there might be some people who have had success in curing their warts by following the method prescribed in Tom Sawyer of swinging a dead cat around one's head at midnight in a graveyard, that does not necessarily mean that the cure was due to this unusual treatment. In order to determine if this was really efficacious, you'd need to get together a study (not necessarily double-blind, I'm not sure why you seem to think that's required) comparing a large group of cat swingers with a large group that merely had their warts frozen off. Perhaps there would be a reduction of warts in the cat swinger's group. In that case one wouldn't necessarily say that it was proved that this worked, but they could say with a varying level of significance that cat swinging was associated with a reduction in the number of warts.
I'm glad your method for preventing post-partum psychosis seems to have worked (although we can't conclude that's the reason why). I don't think that I would call that method alternative medicine, however. It seems more a regimen designed to reduce stress, and traditional medicine definitely recognizes the benefits of stress reduction.
"You alleged that Snopes was set up by "big pharma" for the express purpose of bashing alternative medicine, but you never gave any evidence. "
Clarification - I believe quackwatch has ties to big pharma money, and I believe Snopes is simply spouting the party line in regards to Big Pharma and Codex...
Here are a few insightful commentaries...
http://www.theuniversalseduction.com/articles.php?subaction=showfull&id=1110602338&archive=&start_from=&ucat=2&
"I have received many emails asking for clarification of the "snopes.com" explanation of Codex. Now, when you have a website that is supposed to give the bottom line on urban legends and internet rumors, their position is very distressing. They seem to be cut from that "Big Pharma" cloth, spouting the party line"
http://www.ymlp.com/pubarchive_show_message.php?jham+288
"Snopes website said:
Vitamin See
Claim: American consumers risk losing their right to purchase and use vitamins, minerals, and dietary supplements.
IAHF Comment: [This is true. The SNOPES analysis below is grossly simplistic. To assert that Codex is a "non issue" just because S.722 and HR 3377 have not yet been reintroduced in the new congress is patently absurd, especially given that quick phonecalls to both Durbin's and Davis's offices indicates that they fully intend to reintroduce both bills, with slight changes, under new bill numbers, sometime in this new congress. We go through this EVERY Congress, and the REST of Mikkelson's simplistic analysis totally falls apart especially because she merely echoes the FDA's spin. (complete details below) Anyone can believe FDA (and Snopes) spin on this issue if they want to- but they'd be totally ignoring a slew of unassailable FACTS presented below.]
[I am not the originator of Wallace Heath's information, either. He never ran his alert past me for editorial input before he circulated it. I never even KNEW the guy til after he circulated it. He lives in Bellingham, Washington (one hour south of me) and his was an honest attempt to try to fight back, but he wasn't up to speed on the issue before he circulated his alert and he unwittingly played right into the spin doctor's hands.]"
"Snopes said:
Status: Multiple see below:
In June 2005 the USA will be forced to accept Codex regulation of vitamins, minerals, and dietary supplements: False.
IAHF: [This IS false, but I never said vitamins would be banned in the USA in June of 2005, Wallace Heath said that due to not having all his facts straight, What I have been telling people is that between July 4th and 9th 1995 the 28th General Session of the UN's Codex Alimentarius Commission will be held in Rome, Italy and a highly draconian global trade standard for vitamins and minerals will be ratified at that time unless a last ditch global campaign to stop this criminal agenda succeeds.]
[Unless we succeed in stopping this, the USA would be set up to lose in a future WTO trade dispute as a result of which Congress would be forced via the threat of cross sector sanctioning to harmonize our supplement laws to the Codex standard or huge sanctions could be levied against broad sectors of our economy. At the same time this is happening, huge domestic attacks are occurring against the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994, with the Institute of Medicine at the National Academy of Sciences being joined by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative MEdicine in calling for the Repealment of DSHEA.]
[This attack is not happening in a vaccuum, its part of a broader global pattern of pharma attack against the natural supplements industry which I've been documenting since I created IAHF in '96 to catalyse awareness of this complex issue.] "
"Snopes says:
Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2005]
Your right to choose your vitamin, mineral and other supplements may end in June of this year (2005). After that U.S. supplements will be defined and controlled by the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the World Health Organization (WHO).
The CODEX ALIMENTARIUS (Food Code) is setting the supplement standards for all countries in the WTO. They will be enforced by the WTO and will over ride U.S. laws. The U.S. President and Congress agreed to this take-over when the WTO Treaty was signed. Violations are punished by WTO trade sanctions.
CODEX drastically restricts vitamins, minerals, herbs and other supplements. CODEX met secretly in November, 2004 and finalized "Step 8 (the final stage)" to begin implementation in June, 2005.
IAHF: [They did not "meet secretly". That is a slight over dramatization by Wallace Heath in his efforts to condense this issue to just one page, but it is none the less true that there is a gross lack of transparency in the Codex process. I know. I videotaped part of the CCNFSDU meeting in Berlin Germany in '98 but was stopped by the Chair of the meeting and was forced to turn my cam corder off.]
[If I had not, at the very least they would have confiscated my videotape, and if I had gone beyond what I had already done to disrupt the meeting, I would have found myself in a German jail cell on trumped up charges. I digitized a portion of the videotape and it was up on the web for a few years on a tripod site (a free hosting site) but tripod later shut that site down. I still have the footage, but its not in cyberspace at the current time. I was, however, thrown off the US Delegation prior to the meeting in Berlin in 2000 by US Codex Manager Dr.Ed Scarborough at the US Department of Agriculture who is US Codex Manager at the US Codex Office- see details: http://www.iahf.com/codex/20000603.html]
[I was thrown off the US Delegation just prior to the CCNFSDU meeting in Berlin in 2000 due to efforts to be a whistleblower against Yetley- US Delegate to the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods For Special Dietary Uses. The German government has permanently banned my participation in Codex meetings even though I am a licensed, credentialled member of the press because of what happened after the '98 meeting when I put my video footage on the web showing them force me to shut my camcorder down."
"SNOPES SAID:
In 2004, according to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, almost one in five Americans (19%) reported using a supplement, which means the pool of folks at risk is great. Yet the incentives are there for the dietary supplement industry to keep on doing what it has been doing: in 2002, it reported $18.7 billion in sales. With so much profit at stake, there is little desire on the part of manufacturers to police themselves or their products all that carefully.
IAHF: [This sort of spin is outrageous. This table shows the relative risk of ingesting dietary supplements compared with using prescription drugs, getting hit by lightening, and numerous other objectively measured risks http://www.laleva.cc/supplements/medical_injury_law.pdf ]
[As you can see from these statistics, the risk of injury from consuming foods in common form is FAR greater than the risk of consuming dietary supplements, but we don't see FDA engaging in a witch hunt against foods in common form. (Gee, I WONDER why? ha ha) So WHAT if supplement sales totalled $18.7 billion in sales in 2002?]
[Thats just a drop in the BUCKET compared with PHARMACEUTICAL SALES, and statements like this are merely an indicator of how scared the drug companies are as they see consumers fleeing from their midst in droves as more and more people turn to using supplements as they take charge of their own health and STAY CLEAR of hospitals and doctors completely. The vast majority of supplement companies are very responsible when it comes to following good manufacturing standards, and the assertion that these products are putting large numbers of people at risk is outrageous and unsubstantiated.]
[NCCAM has been hijacked by the pharma elements that control NIH such that its original purpose as envisioned by Senator Tom Harkin and Congressman Berkley Bedell has been subverted, which forced Bedell to create his own private Foundation http://www.nfam.org
http://www.theomnivore.com/February%2027%202005%20Newsletter.html
"I recently visited a number of forums where concerned supplement users had expressed their fears about the implications of CODEX. Inevitably, some "enlightened" respondent replied to these concerns by posting the URL for Mikkelson's Snopes.com article, as if it represented the final word on the subject.
To my amazement, in almost every instance the concerned chat room participant who started the thread expressed relief after reading the Snopes article, or even apologized for "unnecessarily" alarming their fellow supplement users!!
Crikey…
"Hey everybody, it's OK! CODEX is not really the threat it's been made out to be, because a single internet writer from some "hoax-debunking" web site called "Snopes" said so! Whew, what a relief!"
How can some people be so gullible?
Never mind that Mikkelson doesn't even begin to understand what CODEX is all about, nor that she naively parrots the official party line on CODEX. As the IAHF's John Hammell explained, Mikkelson "…is in way over her head when it comes to assessing this complex issue."
Hammell should know. For the last eight years, he has engaged in a full-time mission to protect our access to dietary supplements. Few people have studiously examined the regulatory maze and the true agenda behind CODEX to the extent that Hammell has.
A few weeks ago, I had never heard of Snopes.com. I have since found out that it is a widely-read site, and I have to wonder how much damage has been done to the fight for unimpaired access to dietary supplements by Mikkelson's misguided article. Fortunately, some forum participants have begun posting my page Is the threat of CODEX simply an "Urban Legend"?--which contains Hammell's detailed reply to Mikkelson's empty allegations--in response to those who triumphantly posted the URL to the Snopes article."
Hopefully this will give you some food for thought, but if you want to do your own search, just google snopes, big pharma, and codex and you will get an earfull from the blogs...
Jenny