While I agree with the sentiment, that was a monolith, not an obelisk.
And that right there is why your anecdote is useless: the cough might not have been a symptom. You have no way of knowing exactly what was wrong with your daughter, only that she was sick, and she got better. You have no way of knowing if any of the stuff you did in between actually did anything useful. The number of other factors or combination of factors that could have caused the problem are almost endless. Unless you’ve got a huge number of test cases, in carefully controlled situations to eliminate as many extraneous factors as possible, can you know if any of the treatments you administered did any good.
Right. People who sell pills only want money, and don’t give a shit about healing people or advancing human knowledge. People who sell books, on the other hand, are pure of heart and noble of purpose. Look, it doesn’t matter what you do to treat your illnesses. Someone is making a profit off of it. If this fact alone is enough to discredit pill pushers, it should be equally discrediting to the folk healers.
And? Is there a point to this story, or did you just want to bitch about the sorry state of decongestants?
No, it’s not a guessing game at all. It’s a very straightforward decision made by assessing the probabilities that various treatments will help, and choosing the one that gives you the best odds of helping. You don’t know for a fact that it will work, but you know that precisely 92.5% of other people with similar symptoms who used that product had their symptoms disappear. If you’re taking something because you’re neighbor said it worked, you don’t have any idea what sort of percentages you’re dealing with. Sure, she tells you about the five times it worked for her, but is she telling you about the ten times it didn’t work for her sister? Or about the guy across town who tried the same thing and died?
Why? Why would you be less inclined to follow that particular piece of advice than any other piece of advice your friend could offer? How do you know that won’t cure what ails you?
Okay, first, worshipping God? What the fuck are you talking about?
Second, does your husband the research scientist know how staggeringly ignorant you are about what he does?
You want to know a really good way for a scientific institution to perpetuate itself is? By blowing holes in the work of other scientific institutions. You know what pharmaceutical companies just love? When some other pharma has to pull it’s best-selling product from the shelves because it turns out it doesn’t do anything. You want to make a big name for yourself in an academic enviroment? Show that one of your colleagues is full of shit by shredding his science in public.
Science, by nature, is self-correcting. It requires one to be completely open about what you’ve done, and rewards others for your mistakes.
How super for you.
My mother is turning 67 in October. Middlebro is turning 33 in May. Both of them survived lung infections at age 3 (the story of the doctor whose heart was so weak that Gramps, thankfully a whole 6’5", had to carry him up 5 floors in his arms, and of finding and installing an oxygen tent in post-war Spain is quite a rollercoaster) thanks to oxygen bottles and antibiotics… neither of them had been available for Mom’s older sister (lung infection at age 3, RIP). Neither of them is homeopathic.
These aren’t “two people who never got sick”. And so far their lifespans are almost 11x and exactly 22x longer than my aunt’s.
Nava - sorry but anecdotal info is only relevant if shared by a mommie, preferrably a science shunning neighbor one.
And vice-versa. ESPECIALLY vice-versa.
Ack! Thanks, you’re absolutely correct.
I’m not sure why I wrote obelisk, but since I did in my sample size of 1, it’s just as valid as your “proper” opinion about the use of a term foisted on you by those who just want to sell dictionaries, novels and DVD copies of an old movie.
No. I think you’re confusing the use of scientifically tested remedies with the practice of science itself. I’m not saying that when I go to the chemist and buy some pills, I am practising science. Of course I’m not. I am using the fact that these pills have been rigourously tested under controlled conditions, and shown to have a statistically significant benefit over and above the placebo.
“Science” provided me with the information that the product I am buying will probably help me; verifiable evidence that most people who take the product get better, more quickly than someone taking a placebo. I don’t try and deduce anything about the outcome from my usage, but I don’t need to - someone else has done a valid test, from which logical and statistical conclusions can be drawn. Can I be sure that my specific instance of self-medication made me better? No. But I know that it probably did. And I don’t go around touting my one successful instance as any sort of proof, because it isn’t.
Exactly. Why shouldn’t we be skeptical about the neighbor’s claims too? What if she’s like Christine Maggiore and is pushing her own agenda? I wonder how many children are suffering because their mommies are networking with this mommy?
Goodness but you people are angry. Sorry.
I’ve found this discussion interesting and challenging, and while I’ve argued myself into circles (which may explain your ire), your replies have forced me to re-think and clarify my opinions, which is (as usual) such a delight.
I really went off on the wrong tangent by attacking “science” and “empiricism” as whole entities. Because of course I believe in testing and re-testing hypotheses, particularly when it comes to medicine.
The question, the dilemma actually is – whose empiricism do you trust? Because “empirical reality” is awfully large and vast, and perfectly nice and educated people see it differently. Surely you’ve heard it said that surgeons want to cut, physicians want to give pills.
I’ve experienced it myself – go to see the doctor about your runny nose, and he’ll treat your allergies with pills. But if you went to see an Indoor Air Quality engineer, he’d measure the mites and the mold in your carpet and furnace and have you treat those.
One doctor told me I needed surgery to cure cystitis; another one taught me to modify my behavior.
It’s been my experience that people in a given specialty will claim to have “the” answers, because that is the truth of their empirical reality (and hey, once you’ve cured the symptoms, who bothers to keep looking for the root cause?). Yes, antihistamines work. So does my HEPA vacuum cleaner.
In trying to defend people who use “alternative” medicine (homeopathy excepted) I’m saying that they’re not satisfied with the answers from the medical community, and that can be a GOOD thing.
Nowadays there’s a lot of concern about healing properties of food - chocolate, blueberries, antioxidants, free-radicals. Established medicine and scientists have begun to embrace this – but do you realize that 30 years ago, all of this was viewed as fringe voo-doo bullshit?
Sometimes people outside of the system do a better job of asking questions and continuing to search for cures.
Miller - “you have no way of knowing” is rather harsh - I DID play the odds, by researching allergy treatments and talking to people who’ve had successes. I didn’t engage in random acts around the house. When she was discharged, she still had some RSV in her system. It’s a respiratory illness whose symptoms typically last a month (it just usually doesn’t make a toddler sick enough to require hospitalization). Her brother had it, too. So when she came home and started sneezing and coughing more, I didn’t know if it was just the RSV or a return to her allergic environment. Therefore, 2 days later I removed allergens from the home (as mentioned previously). End of coughing and sneezing. His (milder) symptoms continued for 3 weeks.
I’ve completely forgotten what it is you do for a living, but I somehow doubt it has anything to do with research science. I can absolutely promise you that the research that is done in this country is paid for by somebody. Someone choses project X to fund, as opposed to project Y. If you think those decisions are made entirely based on “scientific merit”, then you need to turn that “staggeringly ignorant” label around and affix it firmly to your forehead. Merit is in the eye of the beholder, and Congress. You’re probably not aware that funding for research fluctuates depending on who’s been elected and the problem du jour; for a while there, you could get all kinds of money if your research had anything to do with national security.
People fund work by established scientists BEFORE they take a chance on someone younger; the quality of the work is not the only criteria for funding. Sure, some of them continue to earn their reputation for excellence. Others, though, happened to live in a congressional district that was under-funded (or, knew a particularly noisy congressman) and got started that way. Some of them did terrific work in their 30s – but that doesn’t mean the work they’re doing 20 years later is equally strong. Surely you’ve heard about the debate over tenure in Universities.
Also, by the way, “peer review” for publication IS NOT done blindly, people KNOW whose work they are reviewing. Studies have shown that people in other countries (I believe Latin America was the example in the article I read) can’t get their work published here simply because it’s coming from Podunk University. They know this because they come here for grad school and ARE published - it’s when they go back home to continue their careers that they’re ignored. My husband had no problem getting work published and funded when it carried the label of his major professor at a Big 10 (who didn’t do a lick of the work, did not design nor carry out the experiments, did not write the paper), but could not get BETTER work funded a few years later when he was working for a non-profit company.
Excellent points, but not only that. One of science’s greatest virtues is that it provides a formal and structured way to go from “OK, well, this works in 95.2% of the cases,” to “Now, why does it work?” This often leads to the description of precise molecular mechanisms of the action of the therapy/drug/whatever. Try that with alternative medicine and mommy-networking.
This is a topic that I fully admit makes me very angry. Whether or not I get unduly angry about it is, I’m sure, in the eye of the beholder. I know that I could have drunk hot blood when a chiropractor started badgering my wife about the benefits of chiropractic treatment for my son with diabetes. I am exceptionally grateful to science and its practitioners for the continuing refinement of treatment for diabetes, and the promising improvements on the horizon. The idea of some fucker convincing a more gullible person that yanking on his leg or manipulating his back might improve his condition makes me see red.
This ire extends to anyone trying to con others for any reason into using treatments, methods or what have you that have not been empirically demonstrated.
Doctors in clinical practice are using the results of science, NOT practicing science. One hopes that they are relying on evidenced based care, but the more that they are artists employing their gut without knowledge of the current scientific developments, the more they become like the practitioners of alternative medicines.
Actually, I don’t think you know what I meant to say. At all. 
What I was saying was that the only active ingredient is dihydrogen monoxide. Which, under the right circumstances, can indeed be harmful. Just ask the good citizens of New Orleans. Or the passengers and crew of the Titanic. Or a boiled lobster.
This is one of my pet irritations, too, but I can’t even discuss it any more. I’ll just say that my parents’ next door neighbor was diagnosed with easily treated, almost certainly curable testicular cancer a while ago. He would have been fine if he’d been treated by a doctor, but his wife insisited he get treated with herbs, magnets, and people manipulating his aura. They went to Tiajuana to find the real “experts”. Needless to say, he died completely needlessly and in a great deal of pain (because she refused to let him take painkillers), leaving his kids without a father, because of this bullshit.
There are a lot of gullible people out there, with belief in everything from roulette systems to Nigerian e-mails.
It’s bad enough to lose money, but why risk your health with charlatans?
Obviously you are a thinker, which is good. 
Excellent.
I don’t understand.
Modern medicine is based on trials, with serious people trying to isolate what works, and constantly reviewing new data. When tested, it works.
Alternative medicine is based on folklore (the Ancients knew a thing or two!), anecdotes (the dog licked it and then it healed!) and hopeful claims. When tested, it doesn’t work.
…the experiment was a total failure. The scientists were no better at deciding which samples were homeopathic than pure chance would have been.
As for your saying, I think surgeons and physicians both want to use their expertise. Alternative medicine wants to make money.
When I go to see my doctor, he uses his years of training to diagnose my problem. If necessary, he calls in a second opinion, or a specialist.
When I see alternative health products like copper bracelets, they claim to cure ‘pain, arthritis, bad circulation, joint problems and rheumatism’. No trials of course, just a hope that people will buy.
Doctors are human. They make mistakes. Please do not judge the entire medical system on some unfortunate personal experiences.
They don’t do research, they don’t test and their products don’t work. That is not a good thing.
Alternative medicine uses the same bullshit all the time.
Cite?
Or you could have gone to an allergist instead of your pediatrician or an “Indoor Air Quality engineer.” The American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology is a pretty “scientific” group. They recommend removing allergens from your home.
www.aaaai.org/patients/publicedmat/tips/indoorallergens.stm
M D Anderson Cancer Center takes science pretty seriously. But it has a group doing “Complementary/Integrative Medicine.” Some of these therapies have been proven to help deal with symptoms of disease–or of the treatment. Currently, researches are using “science” to determine the utility of alternative therapies. (Not homeopathy, of course.)
As far as treating your own minor problems? I saw those horrid commercials about toenail fungus. But tea tree oil worked fine for me–far better than a systemic fungicide. Cheaper & with no side effects (although herbs, etc., can have side effects.)
Woah, wait up here – tea tree oil? How did it work? How did you use it? How fast did it work?
Yes, I know I’m asking for “mommy to mommy” advice here, but as great as science is, it has done jack shit to provide a decent treatment for toenail fungus.
Yes, but the point is that it doesn’t matter if you’re allergic to tse-tse flies; the question is what, exactly, is it in YOUR home that is triggering indoor allergies. Allergies are also cumulative, in that our bodies can handle a certain “load” but then begin to react beyond that threshold. So if your house is dusty AND you have cats, cleaning up the dust MIGHT be enough to alleviate symptoms.
I haven’t, personally, contracted with an IAQ engineer (couldn’t begin to afford it), but I did find a lot of useful (anecdotal) information in Jeff Mays’ book (as mentioned above).
glee, what I’m trying to say is that “doctors” are not a single entity, a borg-like creature that always reaches a unified opinion. They have different ideas of how to solve problems, and they are often mistaken. It took months to get a proper diagnosis for my daughter, and I still have questions. I’m the one who realized her antibiotics weren’t making her better. Doctors can only do so much in a 10-minute office visit.
That’s not to say that copper bracelets are better. Yes, there are lots of charlatans out there.
It’s interesting that you’re all so skeptical towards alternative therapies because of the profit motive, yet assign no such motive to pharmaceutical companies. If you think they’re all philanthropic institutions, you’re awfully naive.
You are aware that there is research being conducted by people other than those involved in the pharmaceutical industry, right?
No, 30 years ago this was viewed as an untested hypothesis, and the unsubstantiated claims of their medical benefits viewed skeptically, because there was no proof that the foods did what was claimed that they did. So people actually studied them, and found that, yes, some of the claims held water. And a lot of them didn’t. If alternative medicine makes a hundred claims, and science shows that ten of them are valid, that’s not much of an endorsement of alternative medicine.
Name one.
And nowhere in this thread have I suggested otherwise. You’re the one who has been insisting that science is somehow tainted by the fact that people make money off of it, while steadfastly ignoring that people are also making money hand-over-fist on alternative cures, as well. If human nature makes scientific research unreliable, then so too does it make alternative medicine unreliable. But the scientific process works to minimize the margin of error introduces by the human element. Alternative medicine has no such comparable filter.
Yes, I am very much aware of the role politics plays in funding medical research. There’s a good reason I didn’t shed any tears when Ronald Reagan finally sloughed off his mortal coil. So what? The fact that all the research that should be funded, does not get funded, doesn’t tell us anything about the value of the research that is funded.
All of which are excellent arguments to rebuff the idea that science is a perfect system that never makes any errors and always uses its resources to the best possible effect. You should cut and paste these paragraphs, and save them against the day you meet someone actually making that argument. Because what people are telling you in this thread isn’t that science is perfect, only that it’s better than folklore and hearsay.
And it’s thanks to researchers that we can separate the “fringe voo-doo bullshit” from what might actually work. People have been touting antioxidants like vitamin E for a variety of things including heart protection, but it took solid research to debunk claims that regularly taking vitamin E will lower deaths from heart disease. Garlic has been promoted as a wonder herb, but there’s a new research study out today concluding that garlic in fresh and pill form does not reduce “bad” cholesterol in people with moderately elevated cholesterol levels.
There are still tons of claims being made by commercial sellers and alties about various foods being fabulous cures (apple cider vinegar, noni juice, coconut oil etc. etc.) and you can buy all this stuff while chiding science for not embracing it - or you can make educated decisions based on the evidence.
Strawman argument. No one has said drug companies are in it solely to Benefit Mankind. We just wish alties would take a fraction of the suspicion with which they view the Medical Establishment and turn that scrutiny on the websites, fringe practitioners and supplement companies they depend on.
This is a disappointing tactic on your part. - if you serve up a steaming load of foolishness in the Pit you can expect a little heat in return. Instead of taking to task those who have responded (quite civilly for the most part) for being emotional, you could do more to make reasonable arguments. At least you haven’t indulged in one of my favorite tactics on the part of alt med advocates (a couple of times in another forum I’ve had long exchanges with someone about a particular alt cure, only to hear (once all the opposition arguments had been shredded) “Gosh, you sure have a lot of time on your hands.”) 
Jackmannii, M.D. (who was just chided in an e-mail from a relative (affectionately, I hope) for being a “New Age jack ass” due to my suggestion that she ask her neurologist about the herb feverfew as a migraine preventative).