Re: Practicing Medicine Without A License ?
Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2011 10:35 am
Miro wrote:Untreated diseases tend to follow unpredictable patterns. Usually there is a common pattern, but there are lots of exceptions too. To assume otherwise is a naive approach, if you ask me.
And you base this on what, intuition?
One has to really get into doctor's shoes and examine history of all of the patients with untreated disease for one to see that there are all kinds of "mysterious cures" in there.
Are you saying you are a doctor? I just pointed you to a book that contains exactly what you are asking for - ONE MAN ALONE (Gonzalez) - documented support for a cure for cancer. This book not only provides medical records that prove beyond a reasonable doubt the diagnosis of cancer, but Dr. Gonzalez also reminds the reader of the ordinary course of that particular cancer using the latest accepted medical data.
But more interesting than that are observations of people using different kinds of alternative therapies. For me, it is enough to see how many people swear that homeopathy works to be really skeptical of testimonials. There are many more homeopathic testimonials than there are Vitamin C ones, with homeopathy being ultra-popular, NHS-funded and whatnot. And that's one of those treatments that have been thoroughly tested and proven to be nothing more than placebo.
You seem certain that there is nothing to homeopathy. Bias? And I am skeptical about your claim that homeopathy has been "thoroughly tested." By whom? I am willing to spend a little time down this path, but where did the money come from? (There is a great book by Dan Haley, Politics in Medicine, that includes one spectacular case of a homeopathic agent:
http://www.amazon.com/Politics-Healing-Suppression-Manipulation-American/dp/0970115008/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1308760162&sr=1-1 This case may be able to make you question your belief that homeopathy is a "placebo effect." (I was probably leaning more to your view before reading this book, but we digress. )
For example, if there was nothing to this, one would expect a lot of people, if not the majority to complain that it didn't help them, but this has been rare over the years. Why would that be in your opinion?
I'd say people generally don't notice when treatments aren't working. Unless they were skeptical of them in the first place, or were on a trial. But disregarding that, there is something Vitamin C has that gives lots of weight to the idea that it is a powerful placebo - Vitamin C does good. Basically, lots of people are malnourished. If these people started taking Vitamin C they would start feeling a lot better. This, combined with the hope, can create a positive reinforcement loop, in a way that active placebos do.
In this case, they die. In our reports, we have people who describe themselves as being in terrible pain, cannot easily walk across a room, have been told there are no more medical options, and happened to have access to the Internet. Within 10 days, report after report describes the end of the heart pain. Some placebo! Within 30 days, we have videos of these people painting their homes! They contacted us because they were amazed, as were we, until it became routine.
And they were ALL taking standard heart medications. Why wouldn't these have acted as placebos?
So you didn't answer the question why people who bought Pauling therapy products haven't called to complain.
My question to you: if Vitamin C is such a powerful treatment, why isn't it spreading like a meme?
I don't know that it isn't. But I do know that there are powerful forces arrayed against it.
We have tried to merely publicize the fact that Pauling had made these claims. (Maybe he was wrong?) Tried for years, based on Pauling's reputation and we have failed to get even a story about this on any national news publication or media outlet. I suspect that one or more positive stories would lead many people to try it on their own, and this would solve the problem of our number one killer - unless the supply of vitamin C runs out, which is a possibility. (If you think Fox News might be interested, take note of their advertisers! Big Pharma may be their largest advertiser.)
The Linus Pauling Institute has not helped. If a media outlet were to call those people, they would merely quote the mantra "there have been no studies." True. These folks have apparently renounced everything Pauling wrote in HOW TO LIVE LONGER AND FEEL BETTER, but that is another story.
The lid has been kept on this, primarily because of the lack of studies. A major purpose of my book was to point this out and implore scientists to run a study or two. (There are developments brewing that might break this wide open... Stay tuned.)
There has been a sustained and deliberate attempt to discredit vitamin C, and it has worked, at least w/r to the medical profession.
But aren't there funded, published, properly randomized and controlled, large-scale RCT's that showed positive results? Like effectiveness of Vitamin C in treating AIDS. I think there was one recently. I'd say if there was such a serious effort to discredit Vitamin C this would never have been published.
You need to catch up on your reading in this area. Such studies do exist, usually run in different parts of the world, esp. Japan, but none of them make it into the standard medical textbooks.
Pauling brought the tip of the iceberg of this "bias" to the attention of the public in his book, discussing the fraud that was the Mayo clinic 'study" of vitamin C and cancer. Positive studies of nutrients that compete with pharmaceuticals rarely make it past the peer-review process of the major medical journals. (Again, look at who places the advertisements in the medical journals.) So these studies are instead published in alternative publications, such as the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, studies which have historically not been cataloged in PUBMED.GOV, so invisible to mainstream researchers.
There is one interesting "accidental" exception. There is one RCT where vitamin C (and magnesium) were given to cardiovascular patients and the results were published in JAMA. The authors ignored the spectacular positive effects, but the data is provided. Vitamin C and Magnesium were used as placebos, and given to both groups. One group was given EDTA, and both the placebo and EDTA group had the same results. (Pretty crafty to use vitamin C and magnesium to show little effect of EDTA!)
Anyway, increased treadmill times were measured in BOTH groups, results, by the way, which no other medication can match! Per the study, the increase in treadmill time in both groups was statistically significant, but dismissed as a "placebo effect." I searched the literature for equivalent positive results, and other than the steroid hormone testosterone, no other drug or drug/nutrient produced such significant increases in treadmill time. I was particularly interested in results for the statin cholesterol lowering drugs, but they had no effect on treadmill time.
JAMA STUDY: JAMA Jan 23/30 2002 RANDOMIZED, DOUBLE-BLIND CONTROLLED TRIAL IN HUMANS FOUND STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT 60-SECOND TREADMILL EXERCISE IMPROVEMENTS IN 5000 MG VITAMIN C GROUPS [Chelation Therapy for Ischemic Heart Disease: A Randomized Controlled Trial, Knudtson, et. al. JAMA, Jan 23/30, 2002 - Vol 287, No 4. Pp 481-486]