Acupuncture: Is it an ancient art or a pointless exercise?
maff
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health/story.jsp?story=501303
It has been practised for 4,500 years and thousands of patients swear
by it. Does acupuncture really work?
By Steve Connor and Jeremy Laurance
15 March 2004
More than 4,500 years ago, the legendary Chinese ruler and cultural
hero Huang-di - the "Yellow Emperor" - is said to have created the
basic elements of one of the greatest civilisations on Earth. In
addition to founding the philosophy of Taoism, Huang-di is credited
with the invention of writing, the discovery of the pottery wheel, the
breeding of silkworms and the creation of acupuncture.
Acupuncture
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http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&tab=gn&q=Acupuncture&sa=N&tab=nw
Is the wakening giant a monster?
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A Blueprint for the Future
http://tinyurl.com/9vga
Rune Børsjø
wrote:
>More than 4,500 years ago, the legendary Chinese ruler and cultural
>hero Huang-di - the "Yellow Emperor" - is said to have created the
I thought they were all yellow? :-P *duck*
>basic elements of one of the greatest civilisations on Earth. In
>addition to founding the philosophy of Taoism, Huang-di is credited
>with the invention of writing, the discovery of the pottery wheel, the
>breeding of silkworms and the creation of acupuncture.
Regardless, it has at least that 20% placebo effect... personally I'd
prefer something less frightening and painful though.
Noctiluca
> Acupuncture: Is it an ancient art or a pointless exercise?
> http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health/story.jsp?story=501303
>
> It has been practised for 4,500 years and thousands of patients swear
> by it. Does acupuncture really work?
No. Ask any two practitioners to demonstrate the correct treatments
points on the same patients body (independently, of course) and their
answers will be wildly divergent. Unless one wishes to argue that the
correct access points to the *qi* change from moment to moment, thus
allowing every practitioner to be right all the time, there is little
evidence to support the application.
Interesting that the study cited that found significant health
benefits was commissioned by the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital.
With homeopathy vying for the position of *single most fraudulent
health-related psuedoscience* it's not surprising that they would be
in favor of support for like endeavors.
robert
Joe Dunckley
> Acupuncture: Is it an ancient art or a pointless exercise?
> http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health/story.jsp?story=501303
A few weeks ago I took up reading the Independent because they introduced
a tabloid size version which was less hastle than the Guardian. I
switched back to the Guardian after a week though because of the amount of
anti-science opinion articles in the Indie
(http://www.steinsky.me.uk/blog.php?id=48). They also lack any
significant science coverage (the Guardian have a whole weekly suplement
of sci & tech). I therefore trust nothing the Indie has to say on science.
--
Joe Dunckley <m...@removethisspamblock.steinsky.me.uk>
http://www.steinsky.me.uk - http://www.cotch.net
Check out the mooircd network: http://www.mooircd.org
Read the current Syndicate of London Journal: http://www.soljo.org
Write the EvoWiki: http://www.evowiki.org
BDK
says...
My last dog had some treatments for his arthritis, and it does work, I
don't think any placebo effect would happen with him. A couple of hours
after he had the first one, he suddenly was moving better than he had
for some time. We continued with them and he kept walking well and
seemed much more comfortable than he was. He started eating better
almost immediately and regained the weight he had lost over the previous
few months and ended up, at the end, at 73 pounds, about what he always
weighed.
As far as pain of the treatment itself, he used to start nodding off in
the middle of them, right after the needles went in. It really relaxed
him, so pain isn't a factor.. The fright, well that's your deal.
BDK
Peter L
"Rune Børsjø" <a...@if.com> wrote in message
news:bjeb50d41jd1umd3k...@4ax.com...
Have you ever had that treatment? Painful it definitely is not. And where
do you come up with that 20% placebo? Is it from the same part of your
brain where you think acupuncture is painful?
>
Andy Groves
> In article <bjeb50d41jd1umd3k...@4ax.com>, a...@if.com
> says...
> > On Mon, 15 Mar 2004 11:49:48 +0000 (UTC), maf...@yahoo.com (maff)
> > wrote:
> >
> > >More than 4,500 years ago, the legendary Chinese ruler and cultural
> > >hero Huang-di - the "Yellow Emperor" - is said to have created the
> >
> > I thought they were all yellow? :-P *duck*
> >
> > >basic elements of one of the greatest civilisations on Earth. In
> > >addition to founding the philosophy of Taoism, Huang-di is credited
> > >with the invention of writing, the discovery of the pottery wheel, the
> > >breeding of silkworms and the creation of acupuncture.
> >
> > Regardless, it has at least that 20% placebo effect... personally I'd
> > prefer something less frightening and painful though.
> >
> >
>
> My last dog had some treatments for his arthritis, and it does work, I
> don't think any placebo effect would happen with him. A couple of hours
> after he had the first one, he suddenly was moving better than he had
> for some time. We continued with them and he kept walking well and
> seemed much more comfortable than he was. He started eating better
> almost immediately and regained the weight he had lost over the previous
> few months and ended up, at the end, at 73 pounds, about what he always
> weighed.
>
I have heard anecdotal evidence that acupuctur works in animals, but
have not seen any hard data myself. Does anyone have any information
on this?
Andy
rich hammett
pubmed "acupuncture animal" turned up a lot, for example:
At least they appeal to spinal nerves and not Qi flow. Color me
skeptical, still.
rich
--
-to reply, it's hot not warm
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
\ Rich Hammett http://home.hiwaay.net/~rhammett
/ "Better the pride that resides in a citizen of the world;
\ than the pride that divides
/ when a colorful rag is unfurled."
Ray Wesley Kinserlow Jr.
wrote:
>Acupuncture: Is it an ancient art or a pointless exercise?
>http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health/story.jsp?story=501303
>
>It has been practised for 4,500 years and thousands of patients swear
>by it. Does acupuncture really work?
>
My ex-wife swears acupuncture helped with pain from shingles. Her
exploration of alternative therapies ended when she went to a
chiropractor who passed a crystal over her body and told her she was
near death and would need extensive treatment to survive. She never
went back. If I ever have problems with pain for which medical
doctors have no solution, I may try acupuncture. One must be careful
of alternative therapies and not let them substitute for real medical
treatment.
Ray Wesley Kinserlow Jr.
Lubbock, Texas
kinserlow at hotmail dot com
homepage: www.members.cox.net/rkinserlow
webmaster: www.d16acbl.org/U197/index.html
Mike Painter
"BDK" <kingrat...@buckeye-express.com> wrote in message
news:MPG.1abfcb305...@news.buckeye-express.com...
I'd suggest reading "King Solomon's ring" and then having whoever did the
treatments apply for the million dollar prize if not convinced.
AC
Ray Wesley Kinserlow Jr. <m...@nospam.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 15 Mar 2004 11:49:48 +0000 (UTC), maf...@yahoo.com (maff)
> wrote:
>
>>Acupuncture: Is it an ancient art or a pointless exercise?
>>http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health/story.jsp?story=501303
>>
>>It has been practised for 4,500 years and thousands of patients swear
>>by it. Does acupuncture really work?
>>
>
> My ex-wife swears acupuncture helped with pain from shingles. Her
> exploration of alternative therapies ended when she went to a
> chiropractor who passed a crystal over her body and told her she was
> near death and would need extensive treatment to survive. She never
> went back. If I ever have problems with pain for which medical
> doctors have no solution, I may try acupuncture. One must be careful
> of alternative therapies and not let them substitute for real medical
> treatment.
Quite frankly I'm completely skeptical of such claims. That's not to say
that some "alternative" therapies may not have some positive effect (beyond
being placebos). However, so much of this stuff is hyped as something the
mainstream (which of course means big bad rich drug companies) wants to
either ignore or malign.
I'll be blunt. If a treatment works, then you can damn sure that
"mainstream" medicine is going to be all over it in a hurry. If it involves
any chemical that can be synthesized, then drug company researchers are
going to be set to the task of isolating the active compounds.
I've had too many people try to sell me on foot massages, magnets, copper,
and the list goes on. It's not that I'm prejudiced against new age snake
oil dealers hawking benign and sometimes even harmful leaves and roots upon
gullible yuppies... Well, actually I am prejudiced against them. They're
quacks.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
Mike Painter
"Ray Wesley Kinserlow Jr." <m...@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:5jfc50d719gqkd7r6...@4ax.com...
> On Mon, 15 Mar 2004 11:49:48 +0000 (UTC), maf...@yahoo.com (maff)
> wrote:
>
> >Acupuncture: Is it an ancient art or a pointless exercise?
> >http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health/story.jsp?story=501303
> >
> >It has been practised for 4,500 years and thousands of patients swear
> >by it. Does acupuncture really work?
> >
>
> My ex-wife swears acupuncture helped with pain from shingles.
I suspect the placebo effect would explain it quite well. One of the things
docs recommend is a cream with capsicum in it.
From the concern my doctor showed when I had the pleasure I guess they must
really hurt most people. Mine were like a bad sunburn, but not nearly as bad
as the worst sunburn I've ever had, or the second worse, come to think of
it.
Noctiluca
> says...
> > On Mon, 15 Mar 2004 11:49:48 +0000 (UTC), maf...@yahoo.com (maff)
> > wrote:
> >
> > >More than 4,500 years ago, the legendary Chinese ruler and cultural
> > >hero Huang-di - the "Yellow Emperor" - is said to have created the
> >
> > I thought they were all yellow? :-P *duck*
> >
> > >basic elements of one of the greatest civilisations on Earth. In
> > >addition to founding the philosophy of Taoism, Huang-di is credited
> > >with the invention of writing, the discovery of the pottery wheel, the
> > >breeding of silkworms and the creation of acupuncture.
> >
> > Regardless, it has at least that 20% placebo effect... personally I'd
> > prefer something less frightening and painful though.
> >
> >
>
> My last dog had some treatments for his arthritis, and it does work,
This is merely anecdotal evidence.
> I don't think any placebo effect would happen with him.
I believe the placebo effect has been demonstrated in animals.
> A couple of hours
> after he had the first one, he suddenly was moving better than he had
> for some time. We continued with them and he kept walking well and
> seemed much more comfortable than he was. He started eating better
> almost immediately and regained the weight he had lost over the previous
> few months and ended up, at the end, at 73 pounds, about what he always
> weighed.
My dog has arthritis as well. His pain will sometimes ease for a
while, even if we forget to give him his medicine. One of three things
can happen with any untreated condition, it will get better, stay the
same, or get worse. The fact that some conditions will improve on
their own, combined with the placebo effect, often makes it seem as if
"alternative medicine" is working.
Your dog would probably show the same effect if you bought him a
Q-Ray.
robert
Noelie S. Alito
news:105cfqi...@corp.supernews.com...
Note that this article refers to _electroacupuncture_. It may have a
TENS-like effect (where Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve
Stimulation interferes with nerve activity).
[Anecdote alert: I've had TENS treatment for a painful hip-joint
condition, and it left me drooling with relief.]
Noelie
--
"Stand back! I've got a little knowledge and I'm not afraid to use it!"
KLM
<m...@nospam.com> wrote:
> If I ever have problems with pain for which medical
>doctors have no solution, I may try acupuncture. One must be careful
>of alternative therapies and not let them substitute for real medical
>treatment.
>
That is a very wise take on the subject.
Even the top Chinese medical practioners agree that western medicine,
especially surgery, antibiotics and sera, offer the best medical
procedures and treatment. Only when western medicine is unavailable
or ineffective will they recommend Chinese medicine. Of course for
non critical illnesses Chinese medicine is as good as any, mainly
because they are what's available, cheap and unlikely to cause
serious harm.
Joe Dunckley
There's a difference between _alternative_ medicine and _traditional_
medicine though. Much of the traditional Chinese medicine probably uses
plants which contain medicinal compounds (often the same ones drug
companies distil to make conventional western medicine). It seems the
term "Alternative medicine", however, covers all medicines which haven't
passed double-blind trials (either because nobody has done them, or more
likely they fail). If they pass those trials they are simply medicine, no
alternative about them!
dkomo
Don't you think the same could be said about "conventional medicine"?
I've heard lots of anecdotes about conventional medicine working, and
failing to work. And it's often more expensive than alternative
medicine, and much more expensive than no treatment at all.
Bob Dog
> http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health/story.jsp?story=501303
>
> It has been practised for 4,500 years and thousands of patients swear
> by it. Does acupuncture really work?
Europe used leeches, China used needles. And they have the
same effect.
The blind acceptance of acupuncture is the same stupidity
we've seen for centuries: a willingness to accept something
as true because it's "exotic" and new. People believed and
still believe astrology long after it has been debunked,
despite the facts.
Part of the problem is what I and others from or in Asia
have found: the confucianist view that "our way is right,
the foreign way is wrong" which makes China, Korea, and
Japan unwilling to questions their ideas.
Bob Dog
Bobby D. Bryant
> Part of the problem is what I and others from or in Asia have found: the
> confucianist view that "our way is right, the foreign way is wrong"
Gee, _that's_ a novel mindset.
> which makes China, Korea, and Japan unwilling to questions their ideas.
--
Bobby Bryant
Austin, Texas
Mike Painter
"dkomo" <dkomo...@cris.com> wrote in message
news:4056953E...@cris.com...
>
> Don't you think the same could be said about "conventional medicine"?
> I've heard lots of anecdotes about conventional medicine working, and
> failing to work. And it's often more expensive than alternative
> medicine, and much more expensive than no treatment at all.
Conventional medicine certainly fails for some people and may give odd
results in others.
Individual stories you hear are indeed anecdotal but generally the reason
may be found in the literature about the medicine.
But double blind testing has shown that it is more effective, than placebo's
on a large percentage of the population.
If you read the "literature" on quack medicine it will say "it cures"
period.
Read what is said about real medicine and you will find all types of
qualifiers.
This medicine is good for x percent of the y population under z conditions
when not used with a, b, c, other medications.
BDK
bubba...@warmmail.com says...
I was pretty skeptical too, but a co worker took her huge Newfoundland
to the acupuncture vets office and he started walking better right away,
so I figured it was worth a shot. My dog's sudden improvement from a
shakey legged old( 14+)sloooooow walking old geezer that had trouble
turning around in the car seat, to being able to climb into the front
seat a couple of hours later, was kind of a shock. He slept a lot better
and started eating like he used to. I took him for walks every day and
the distance he wanted to go nearly doubled, from about a 1/4 mile to a
1/2 mile the next day, and soon was up to about a mile. We used to to
almost 3 miles a day, every day unless it was raining or too cold, for
sure, and we hadn't done anything close to a mile in about 2 years,
since he blew a disk in his neck. I think the downtime from his neck
screwed him up, but he really did hurt himself a lot over the years,
since he was a "wall bouncer" from the start.
Before the treatments, he was down to a spindly for him 59 pounds, I
think he was too sore to eat comfortably, and the accupuncture sure
helped his appetite
He was, as far as we could tell, pain free until the day we put him to
sleep. He was loaded with cancer, and shouldn't have been, but he was
eating great and acting fine until the night before he went.
BDK
BDK
seeingis...@VolcanoMail.com says...
> BDK <kingrat...@buckeye-express.com> wrote in message news:<MPG.1abfcb305...@news.buckeye-express.com>...
> > In article <bjeb50d41jd1umd3k...@4ax.com>, a...@if.com
> > says...
> > > On Mon, 15 Mar 2004 11:49:48 +0000 (UTC), maf...@yahoo.com (maff)
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > >More than 4,500 years ago, the legendary Chinese ruler and cultural
> > > >hero Huang-di - the "Yellow Emperor" - is said to have created the
> > >
> > > I thought they were all yellow? :-P *duck*
> > >
> > > >basic elements of one of the greatest civilisations on Earth. In
> > > >addition to founding the philosophy of Taoism, Huang-di is credited
> > > >with the invention of writing, the discovery of the pottery wheel, the
> > > >breeding of silkworms and the creation of acupuncture.
> > >
> > > Regardless, it has at least that 20% placebo effect... personally I'd
> > > prefer something less frightening and painful though.
> > >
> > >
> >
> > My last dog had some treatments for his arthritis, and it does work,
>
> This is merely anecdotal evidence.
>
OK
> > I don't think any placebo effect would happen with him.
>
> I believe the placebo effect has been demonstrated in animals.
?? Exactly how would they know they are "supposed to get better" when
needles are inserted?? How the dog makes a connection between
accupuncture needles and suddenly, and permanently, walking better than
he had for some time, is something I would like to know.
>
> > A couple of hours
> > after he had the first one, he suddenly was moving better than he had
> > for some time. We continued with them and he kept walking well and
> > seemed much more comfortable than he was. He started eating better
> > almost immediately and regained the weight he had lost over the previous
> > few months and ended up, at the end, at 73 pounds, about what he always
> > weighed.
>
> My dog has arthritis as well. His pain will sometimes ease for a
> while, even if we forget to give him his medicine. One of three things
> can happen with any untreated condition, it will get better, stay the
> same, or get worse. The fact that some conditions will improve on
> their own, combined with the placebo effect, often makes it seem as if
> "alternative medicine" is working.
His medication was aspirin, all the other stuff didn't work, or made him
very sick. I posted his sudden, and permanent, until he was put down due
to cancer, improvement in movement. He was 14, and had hurt himself
dozens of times and was basically worn out, joint wise.
>
> Your dog would probably show the same effect if you bought him a
> Q-Ray.
>
> robert
Hell, someone gave my mom one of those, LOL!
>
>
> > As far as pain of the treatment itself, he used to start nodding off in
> > the middle of them, right after the needles went in. It really relaxed
> > him, so pain isn't a factor.. The fright, well that's your deal.
> >
> > BDK
>
This was not a dog that liked the vet, and never fell asleep EXCEPT when
he was having a treatment. He would twitch a little and look over his
shoulder when the needles were being inserted, and the first time, stood
and panted. The second time, as soon as the needles were in, he stopped
panting, and ended up laying down on the exam table just before he took
them out. The third time, he went to sleep right away, and when the vet
came in to take the needles out, my dog licked him and was extremely
relaxed, I had never, ever seen him lick that vet, or any vet before.
After that time, when the vet came in, the dog wagged his tail and was
obviously happy to see him, something new again.
BDK
Jim
news:18510aff.0403...@posting.google.com...
> Acupuncture: Is it an ancient art or a pointless exercise?
> http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health/story.jsp?story=501303
>
The needles are not pointless, they are often quite sharp...
Ray Wesley Kinserlow Jr.
As an agnostic I have learned to tolerate religious wishful thinking
as mostly harmless. As long as a "quack" doesn't interfere with
legitimate medical treatments, I say live and let live. If a "quack"
causes the death of a person through their ministrations, they should
be brought up on manslaughter charges at the least and perhaps even
murder in particularly egregious cases.
Ray Wesley Kinserlow Jr.
One of the things the acupuncturist did was rub a balm into the
affected areas before putting the needles in. This with the needles
tied to an electric current source seem to give her relief for a
while.
Shingles was the only thing I ever saw make my ex-wife cry. After her
experience with it, I decided I never ever wanted shingles.
Ray Wesley Kinserlow Jr.
While I respect the knowledge which has been accumulated by
practitioners of traditional medicine, I prefer my medicine doled out
in more exact measurements than they typically provide with dollops of
herbs and such. Medicine is always evolving. At one time, sanitation
was not considered important by doctors and surgeons thought the
scream of a cut patient was a good thing. Then microscopes and
anesthetics (actually and understandably started by dentists) came
along.
Rune Børsjø
<pete...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>Have you ever had that treatment? Painful it definitely is not.
No, and I really don't want to try. Call me a wuss, but I hate
needles. Vaccines and bloodwork is alright, I know what to expect, but
I've heard from several people that it's not exactly painless.
>And where
>do you come up with that 20% placebo? Is it from the same part of your
>brain where you think acupuncture is painful?
John Wilkins
Sure, and nobody has ever had that approach before. Certainly not
Europe, or Rome, or Greece, or Judea...
--
John Wilkins
john...@wilkins.id.au http://www.wilkins.id.au
"Men mark it when they hit, but do not mark it when they miss"
- Francis Bacon
Ferrous Patella
(maff):
> Acupuncture: Is it an ancient art or a pointless exercise?
> http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health/story.jsp?story=501303
Another headline editor earns their keep!
--
Ferrous Patella
"Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war."
--John Adams, letter to Abigail, 1797
Bobby D. Bryant
> Bobby D. Bryant <bdbr...@mail.utexas.edu> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 16 Mar 2004 05:27:25 +0000, Bob Dog wrote:
>>
>> > Part of the problem is what I and others from or in Asia have found:
>> > the confucianist view that "our way is right, the foreign way is
>> > wrong"
>>
>> Gee, _that's_ a novel mindset.
>>
>> > which makes China, Korea, and Japan unwilling to questions their
>> > ideas.
>
> Sure, and nobody has ever had that approach before. Certainly not Europe,
> or Rome, or Greece, or Judea...
But in Rome they poked you with a bigger stick if you didn't go along.
Noctiluca
> In article <14069514.04031...@posting.google.com>,
> seeingis...@VolcanoMail.com says...
> > BDK <kingrat...@buckeye-express.com> wrote in message news:<MPG.1abfcb305...@news.buckeye-express.com>...
> > > In article <bjeb50d41jd1umd3k...@4ax.com>, a...@if.com
> > > says...
> > > > On Mon, 15 Mar 2004 11:49:48 +0000 (UTC), maf...@yahoo.com (maff)
> > > > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > >More than 4,500 years ago, the legendary Chinese ruler and cultural
> > > > >hero Huang-di - the "Yellow Emperor" - is said to have created the
> > > >
> > > > I thought they were all yellow? :-P *duck*
> > > >
> > > > >basic elements of one of the greatest civilisations on Earth. In
> > > > >addition to founding the philosophy of Taoism, Huang-di is credited
> > > > >with the invention of writing, the discovery of the pottery wheel, the
> > > > >breeding of silkworms and the creation of acupuncture.
> > > >
> > > > Regardless, it has at least that 20% placebo effect... personally I'd
> > > > prefer something less frightening and painful though.
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> > > My last dog had some treatments for his arthritis, and it does work,
> >
> > This is merely anecdotal evidence.
> >
>
> OK
Apologies if that seemed harsh.
> > > I don't think any placebo effect would happen with him.
> >
> > I believe the placebo effect has been demonstrated in animals.
>
> ?? Exactly how would they know they are "supposed to get better" when
> needles are inserted?? How the dog makes a connection between
> accupuncture needles and suddenly, and permanently, walking better than
> he had for some time, is something I would like to know.
This is one of the interesting aspects of the placebo effect and the
reason that *double* blind protocols (meaning the researchers, as well
as the patients with whom they directly interact, have no knowledge of
which treatment is the experimental subject and which is the placebo)
have to be employed in these kinds of studies. Even if a patient does
not know which medicine he is receiving a doctor, or owner in the case
of a dog, who does know may alter their behavior during the process of
the test and therefore affect the patient's response. For example, it
would not be surprising if you or I, an owner wondering if, and hoping
that the treatment will work on our dog, might show him/her more
attention, even sympathy, during the process. This alone would be
enough to encourage, if not healing, then at least eased pain. Even
the best researchers, when they know which e.g. pill they are giving a
patient, can unconsciously bias the outcome through subtle clues they
communicate. The placebo effect is quite powerful and, as far as I'm
aware, cannot be eliminated, just controlled for.
> > > A couple of hours
> > > after he had the first one, he suddenly was moving better than he had
> > > for some time. We continued with them and he kept walking well and
> > > seemed much more comfortable than he was. He started eating better
> > > almost immediately and regained the weight he had lost over the previous
> > > few months and ended up, at the end, at 73 pounds, about what he always
> > > weighed.
> >
> > My dog has arthritis as well. His pain will sometimes ease for a
> > while, even if we forget to give him his medicine. One of three things
> > can happen with any untreated condition, it will get better, stay the
> > same, or get worse. The fact that some conditions will improve on
> > their own, combined with the placebo effect, often makes it seem as if
> > "alternative medicine" is working.
>
> His medication was aspirin, all the other stuff didn't work, or made him
> very sick. I posted his sudden, and permanent, until he was put down due
> to cancer, improvement in movement. He was 14, and had hurt himself
> dozens of times and was basically worn out, joint wise.
I give my dog aspirin as well. It seems to work effectively enough.
I'm glad yours improved enough to enjoy his last days. Understand I am
not saying I would have done anything different in your case. I'm not
suggesting your dog didn't show marked improvement and I'm not even
suggesting that the treatment he received wasn't responsible for this
improvement. I'm simply pointing out the some conditions, if left
alone, will improve significantly, or even heal.
> > Your dog would probably show the same effect if you bought him a
> > Q-Ray.
> >
> > robert
>
> Hell, someone gave my mom one of those, LOL!
I'm astounded by the commercials, ever notice they never say anything
whatsoever about what it does?
> > > As far as pain of the treatment itself, he used to start nodding off in
> > > the middle of them, right after the needles went in. It really relaxed
> > > him, so pain isn't a factor.. The fright, well that's your deal.
> > >
> > > BDK
> >
>
>
> This was not a dog that liked the vet, and never fell asleep EXCEPT when
> he was having a treatment. He would twitch a little and look over his
> shoulder when the needles were being inserted, and the first time, stood
> and panted. The second time, as soon as the needles were in, he stopped
> panting, and ended up laying down on the exam table just before he took
> them out. The third time, he went to sleep right away, and when the vet
> came in to take the needles out, my dog licked him and was extremely
> relaxed, I had never, ever seen him lick that vet, or any vet before.
> After that time, when the vet came in, the dog wagged his tail and was
> obviously happy to see him, something new again.
>
> BDK
I believe it. Strange things do happen.
There is no way to argue against an individuals' experience and I
wouldn't try. But as regards the wider issue of whether a practice can
be considered a reasonable treatment option the only way to reach any
kind of reliable evaluation is through scientific techniques and much
of the time this demands broad, clinical studies. Anecdotal evidence
just does not provide a reliable source of data. Lengthy and
cumbersome as the double-blind process is, it is the best we've got
right now.
robert
AC
There's no doubt that any treatment will, in a small group, be ineffective,
or potentially even harmful. However, drugs have to go through clinical
trials, which, no matter what the alternative medicine industry claims,
offers the very best possibility of discovering the effectiveness of the
treatment and potential harmful side-effects. Drugs you get from the
pharmacy or dispensary are carefully measured, as opposed to the practically
random dosages you are going to get from some herbal remedies.
No treatment is going to help all of the people all of the time. The key is
to develop treatments that can help most of the people most of the time.
Determining this in a proper, clinical environment, as opposed to "my
great-great-grandmother said applying poultices made of radish and chicken
dung will heal infections."
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
Noctiluca
What Mike said.
I would add only that in this day and age we (myself included) seem to
have developed this notion that modern medicine should be nigh unto
infallible. I suppose this is understandable considering the very
vested interests we have in its successes and failures.
Modern medicine is justifiably perceived as science, but somehow we
seem to have missed the realization that it is *only* science, with
all its limitations (didn't someone once describe biology as "the
science of exceptions to the rule" or something like that?).
It aint perfect but it's the best we got.
robert
KLM
<joseph.dunck...@uwe.ac.uk> wrote:
>There's a difference between _alternative_ medicine and _traditional_
>medicine though. Much of the traditional Chinese medicine probably uses
>plants which contain medicinal compounds (often the same ones drug
>companies distil to make conventional western medicine). It seems the
>term "Alternative medicine", however, covers all medicines which haven't
>passed double-blind trials (either because nobody has done them, or more
>likely they fail). If they pass those trials they are simply medicine, no
>alternative about them!
Interesting points of argument.
Note: I don't have any health problems where I need ethical drug
treatments yet let alone resort to herbal treatments. I don't have
any practical knowledge of the herbalists' procedures except what my
mother did for me when I was a child and what I observed when I was
with her at the herbal pharmacy.
The usual method of prescription and dosing on Chinese medicinal herbs
is for the herbalist to provide a mixture of different herbs in their
native form all of which have to be boiled for hours to extract their
essence.
The key differences between western drug protocols and traditional
herbal treatments I see are
1. A mixture of herbs, never a single one. Western medicine has only
recently adopted this approach of providing multiple drugs to treat a
disease (eg. AIDS.)
2. As they are prescribed in their native form even the most
illiterate peasant, or at least someone she/he knows, can recognize by
sight what is being prescribed. There is almost no possibility of
wrong prescription or of wrong dosage.
3. If you listen to the herbalist he will explain that each of the
component herbs are meant to complement and reinforce the others. The
single purified drug regimen of western practice ignores the
complementary effects of the other herbal components. The mixture of
herbs is often boiled for many hours to extract their essence. Surely
the heat and length of heating plus their interaction with the other
herbal ingredients change their chemistry. I don't think western drug
analysis had taken this into consideration when assessing the efficacy
of purified herbal drug extracts.
4. A very real danger of western type purified drugs is overdosing to
the level of toxicity. Its almost impossible to over dose on
wholesome herbs as the native form in which they are prescribed and
their tedious preparation methods make that uneconomical (re. 2
above.)
After all is said and done the original question is
>Acupuncture: Is it an ancient art or a pointless exercise?
and my opinion is that we Chinese are an eminently practical and
pragmatic people. For a practice to persist unchanged for as long as
Chinese civilization had existed and well into poresent times it must
have real utility and results. Modern science has still not found a
way to measure that utility. In the meantime the results have not
been invalidated. If acupuncture works for you and it does no harm by
all means go for it. We don't need to resolve every meaning of life
first in order to live it.
AC
KLM <klm...@yahoo.com> wrote:
<snip>
> After all is said and done the original question is
>
>>Acupuncture: Is it an ancient art or a pointless exercise?
>
> and my opinion is that we Chinese are an eminently practical and
> pragmatic people. For a practice to persist unchanged for as long as
> Chinese civilization had existed and well into poresent times it must
> have real utility and results.
Blood-letting has been around for a long time, and yet I doubt anyone claims
it has much utility at all. Essentially, the claim that a treatment has
been around a long time is an appeal to authority, and not the basis of a
sound clinical recommendation. Considering all the nonsensical things
people believe and have believed for thousands of years (Earth is the center
of the solar system, illnesses caused by evil spirits, and the list goes on
and on and on), claiming that treatments of great antiquity are useful
because of their antiquity isn't terribly compelling to me.
>Modern science has still not found a
> way to measure that utility.
Of course there is. Clinical trials.
> In the meantime the results have not
> been invalidated. If acupuncture works for you and it does no harm by
> all means go for it. We don't need to resolve every meaning of life
> first in order to live it.
Acupuncture does not do any harm that I know of, so I agree. HOwever some
herbal treatments do actually have a negative impact. We can go around all
day arguing about Chinese traditional medicine vs. modern protocols, but at
the end of the day, if we truly want to determine whether something works,
double-blinds and other clinical methodologies are the way to go. I'm sorry
if this offends, but I have no more reason to believe the claims of Chinese
traditional medicinal practitioners than I do Native American, African, or
some Mexican cancer clinic with novel cancer treatments. Some treatments are
obviously beyond causing harm, but when it comes to ingesting substances,
then I think the claims have to have something other than "the Chinese have
been doing it x thousand years".
Nobody claims modern Western medicine is perfect. However, the alternative
is letting any quack make any claim he wants, and at the very least ripping
people off and at the worst possibly putting people's health at risk.
The problem that many people have is that researching any therapy takes
time. When proper care has not been taken, the results have been
disasterous. It's very hard for someone whose child is dying of some rare
cancer to accept that some potential drug is not available to their child
because it is still in clinical trials, but the alternative is to never
really have a grasp of whether a treatment works, and just as importantly
how it works. Learning how a treatment influences healing is very important
as well, as such treatments may be refined, or may even be useful on other
ailments.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
Noctiluca
"(snicker, giggle)"
"Is thewre a... pwobwem, centuwion?"
dkomo
Ideally, but this process in the US has become corrupted by two
factors: greed and incompetence. I really don't care to defend
alternative medicine here, but I'd like to point out that the benefits
of modern medicine are quite overstated. In fact, modern medicine
ends up *killing* hundreds of thousands of Americans every year. If
this happened with alternative medicine there would be a huge public
outcry to regulate it. But when it comes to the US medical-industrial
complex, there's hardly a ripple.
> Drugs you get from the
> pharmacy or dispensary are carefully measured, as opposed to the practically
> random dosages you are going to get from some herbal remedies.
>
It's the incompetence in dispensing drugs with potentially dangerous
side effects that is killing so many people in US hospitals. Either
the dosages are too high, or the wrong drugs are given to the wrong
people, or the drugs are mixed with others in lethal combinations.
These facts are in the public domain, but who pays attention to them?
> No treatment is going to help all of the people all of the time. The key is
> to develop treatments that can help most of the people most of the time.
First, do no harm.
Mike Painter
>
> Ideally, but this process in the US has become corrupted by two
> factors: greed and incompetence. I really don't care to defend
> alternative medicine here, but I'd like to point out that the benefits
> of modern medicine are quite overstated. In fact, modern medicine
> ends up *killing* hundreds of thousands of Americans every year. If
> this happened with alternative medicine there would be a huge public
> outcry to regulate it. But when it comes to the US medical-industrial
> complex, there's hardly a ripple.
Take it away and see how many would die. Compare causes of death and death
rates prior to 1930 with today. Simple scratchs killed back then, they
rarely do today.
Drugs alone have saved uncounted numbers.
In the early 60's I transported a man to a hospital in Sacramento with a
spinal injury, he dove into a shallow pool. He died and they knew he was
going to. They could do *nothing*
18 months later I did exactly the same thing with a man who dove into a snow
bank and he suffered exactly the same injury. He is still alive because
modern medicine advanced over that period.
There is greed, incompetance and plain stupidity in medicine today. Doctors
follow normal curves and I've seen a lot of the bad end. In the past it was
mostly incompetance and stupidity, but no sane person would want to go back.
>
> > Drugs you get from the
> > pharmacy or dispensary are carefully measured, as opposed to the
practically
> > random dosages you are going to get from some herbal remedies.
> >
>
> It's the incompetence in dispensing drugs with potentially dangerous
> side effects that is killing so many people in US hospitals. Either
> the dosages are too high, or the wrong drugs are given to the wrong
> people, or the drugs are mixed with others in lethal combinations.
> These facts are in the public domain, but who pays attention to them?
If true then supplying the same software to the hospitals that other
pharmacies carry is a simple solution.
AC
I think that's pretty darn unfair. Consider how many people died of
specific ailments compared to now. And how many of these hundreds of
thousands are actually killed by the medications as opposed to whatever
disorders or diseases they're suffering from. Clearly the drug industry,
for all its greed, has been responsible for saving many lives as well as
easing disorders that have lead to a decreased quality of life.
>
>> Drugs you get from the
>> pharmacy or dispensary are carefully measured, as opposed to the practically
>> random dosages you are going to get from some herbal remedies.
>>
>
> It's the incompetence in dispensing drugs with potentially dangerous
> side effects that is killing so many people in US hospitals.
Now that's a separate issue from drug development.
> Either
> the dosages are too high, or the wrong drugs are given to the wrong
> people, or the drugs are mixed with others in lethal combinations.
> These facts are in the public domain, but who pays attention to them?
Before you quote off statistics perhaps you should put them into the context
of how many people died in hospitals a century ago. Drug dispensing
problems are serious, but I consider them overstated.
>
>> No treatment is going to help all of the people all of the time. The key is
>> to develop treatments that can help most of the people most of the time.
>
> First, do no harm.
No treatment is going to be 100% successful, and accidents are going to
happen. What's the alternative? Don't give out life-saving treatments
because some nurse screwed up on a dosage?
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
Joe Dunckley
wrote:
> AC wrote:
>>
>> There's no doubt that any treatment will, in a small group, be
>> ineffective,
>> or potentially even harmful. However, drugs have to go through clinical
>> trials, which, no matter what the alternative medicine industry claims,
>> offers the very best possibility of discovering the effectiveness of the
>> treatment and potential harmful side-effects.
>
> Ideally, but this process in the US has become corrupted by two
> factors: greed and incompetence. I really don't care to defend
> alternative medicine here, but I'd like to point out that the benefits
> of modern medicine are quite overstated. In fact, modern medicine
> ends up *killing* hundreds of thousands of Americans every year. If
> this happened with alternative medicine there would be a huge public
> outcry to regulate it. But when it comes to the US medical-industrial
> complex, there's hardly a ripple.
Alternative medicine _does_ have its own fair share of greed and danger.
Francis Wheen's current book "How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World" (Fourth
Estate, 2004) is all about "gurus" who make millions out of conning people
and John Diamond's "Snake Oil" (Vintage 2001) is all about the dangers of
alternative medicine. Alternative medicine _should_ be regulated, but it
should be regulated by being put through double-blind trials.
>> Drugs you get from the
>> pharmacy or dispensary are carefully measured, as opposed to the
>> practically
>> random dosages you are going to get from some herbal remedies.
>>
>
> It's the incompetence in dispensing drugs with potentially dangerous
> side effects that is killing so many people in US hospitals. Either
> the dosages are too high, or the wrong drugs are given to the wrong
> people, or the drugs are mixed with others in lethal combinations.
> These facts are in the public domain, but who pays attention to them?
>
>> No treatment is going to help all of the people all of the time. The
>> key is
>> to develop treatments that can help most of the people most of the time.
>
> First, do no harm.
>
>> Determining this in a proper, clinical environment, as opposed to "my
>> great-great-grandmother said applying poultices made of radish and
>> chicken
>> dung will heal infections."
>>
>> --
>> Aaron Clausen
>> mightym...@hotmail.com
>
--
BDK
> BDK <kingrat...@buckeye-express.com> wrote in message news:<MPG.1ac06ee4b...@news.buckeye-express.com>...
> > In article <14069514.04031...@posting.google.com>,
> > seeingis...@VolcanoMail.com says...
> > > BDK <kingrat...@buckeye-express.com> wrote in message news:<MPG.1abfcb305...@news.buckeye-express.com>...
> > > > In article <bjeb50d41jd1umd3k...@4ax.com>, a...@if.com
> > > > says...
> > > > > On Mon, 15 Mar 2004 11:49:48 +0000 (UTC), maf...@yahoo.com (maff)
> > > > > wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > >More than 4,500 years ago, the legendary Chinese ruler and cultural
> > > > > >hero Huang-di - the "Yellow Emperor" - is said to have created the
> > > > >
> > > > > I thought they were all yellow? :-P *duck*
> > > > >
> > > > > >basic elements of one of the greatest civilisations on Earth. In
> > > > > >addition to founding the philosophy of Taoism, Huang-di is credited
> > > > > >with the invention of writing, the discovery of the pottery wheel, the
> > > > > >breeding of silkworms and the creation of acupuncture.
> > > > >
> > > > > Regardless, it has at least that 20% placebo effect... personally I'd
> > > > > prefer something less frightening and painful though.
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > My last dog had some treatments for his arthritis, and it does work,
> > >
> > > This is merely anecdotal evidence.
> > >
> >
> > OK
>
> Apologies if that seemed harsh.
No big deal.
>
> > > > I don't think any placebo effect would happen with him.
> > >
> > > I believe the placebo effect has been demonstrated in animals.
> >
> > ?? Exactly how would they know they are "supposed to get better" when
> > needles are inserted?? How the dog makes a connection between
> > accupuncture needles and suddenly, and permanently, walking better than
> > he had for some time, is something I would like to know.
>
> This is one of the interesting aspects of the placebo effect and the
> reason that *double* blind protocols (meaning the researchers, as well
> as the patients with whom they directly interact, have no knowledge of
> which treatment is the experimental subject and which is the placebo)
> have to be employed in these kinds of studies. Even if a patient does
> not know which medicine he is receiving a doctor, or owner in the case
> of a dog, who does know may alter their behavior during the process of
> the test and therefore affect the patient's response. For example, it
> would not be surprising if you or I, an owner wondering if, and hoping
> that the treatment will work on our dog, might show him/her more
> attention, even sympathy, during the process. This alone would be
> enough to encourage, if not healing, then at least eased pain. Even
> the best researchers, when they know which e.g. pill they are giving a
> patient, can unconsciously bias the outcome through subtle clues they
> communicate. The placebo effect is quite powerful and, as far as I'm
> aware, cannot be eliminated, just controlled for.
Well, the thing was, he hadn't gotten much better with anything we
tried, they (pills) all had bad side effects, mostly the squirts, and we
were looking for something that didn't really have any, and as far as we
could see, any effects from it were all positive, except for $$. The
turning around in the seat the first night was a total shock, he
couldn't do it with the car moving for a long time before that, then he
stood up and got his head rubbed, something he hadn't done in a moving
car for a long long time.
>
> > > > A couple of hours
> > > > after he had the first one, he suddenly was moving better than he had
> > > > for some time. We continued with them and he kept walking well and
> > > > seemed much more comfortable than he was. He started eating better
> > > > almost immediately and regained the weight he had lost over the previous
> > > > few months and ended up, at the end, at 73 pounds, about what he always
> > > > weighed.
> > >
> > > My dog has arthritis as well. His pain will sometimes ease for a
> > > while, even if we forget to give him his medicine. One of three things
> > > can happen with any untreated condition, it will get better, stay the
> > > same, or get worse. The fact that some conditions will improve on
> > > their own, combined with the placebo effect, often makes it seem as if
> > > "alternative medicine" is working.
I know what you are saying, but even people who didn't see him for
months said he looked better, and sure was steadier on his feet. The
sleeping thing at the vet (only that vet, at the regular one, he wasn't
any different, a shaking mess) was another thing that was pretty
convincing. Almost as soon as the needles went in, he started getting
droopy eyed, and was sound asleep in about ten minutes later on. I don't
know if it just was some sort of electrical thing, or the Chinese
theories and stuff were true, but something happend. If you told me he
would ever sleep at the vets without being dosed, I would have said you
were nuts.
> >
> > His medication was aspirin, all the other stuff didn't work, or made him
> > very sick. I posted his sudden, and permanent, until he was put down due
> > to cancer, improvement in movement. He was 14, and had hurt himself
> > dozens of times and was basically worn out, joint wise.
>
> I give my dog aspirin as well. It seems to work effectively enough.
> I'm glad yours improved enough to enjoy his last days. Understand I am
> not saying I would have done anything different in your case. I'm not
> suggesting your dog didn't show marked improvement and I'm not even
> suggesting that the treatment he received wasn't responsible for this
> improvement. I'm simply pointing out the some conditions, if left
> alone, will improve significantly, or even heal.
Maybe improve, but he was old, and worn out. He had hurt himself so many
times over the years, from falling down, snapping toenals off,
scratching corneas (lots of scars on both eyes) running into doors,
crashing through doors, and glass, a couple of huge fights when he was
attacked by much larger dogs ( a huge mistake on their part, they
weren't pretty at the end), flailing around in the car and one time,
jumping out the driver's window (no, we wern't moving) onto concrete.
Well, I agree for the most part, but I won't hesitate to try it on my
present dogs, if they need it. The female has fairly bad hips, but at 5
years old, shows no signs of any problems. She runs well, almost as good
as her brother, my other dog. He kind of won the genetics lottery. His
hips are good, he has no skin problems, and is the most self confident
thing I have ever seen, and he sleeps like a cat. Almost the total
opposite of his sister, who's a "whack job". The totally dialated eyes
are pretty spooky, my other dog's pupils are about 1/8" and she's right
next to him and they are totally open and you can see all kinds of
retina in the back. I had them do all kinds of tests on her, and she's
fine, just a really hyper dog. I had her for 3 months before I saw
normal sized pupils! She's very nice, but barks a lot, and is very
territorial about the backyard. She is getting good at killing any small
animals like Skunks (3 of them, so far), Possuums (2 dead for sure, 1
probable, six or seven hurt), a groundhog, and she chewed up my
neighbor's giant calico cat and I had to rescue him. He bit the crap out
of me after I got him away from her. I should have let her "keep" him.
BDK
Mike Painter
"Joe Dunckley" <joseph.dunck...@uwe.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:opr40gpe...@news.individual.de...
Which is why those who practice it almost without exception do not sell
"medicine". They call it something else that the government currently says
does not have to be tested.
Sincere or not, they ignore the fact that most of these potions *are* very
old and were abandoned when either they were found ineffective or the
ingredient that was effective was isolated.
They claim that their junk is "natural" and "organic" never realizing that
until very recent times that's where all medicine came from.
AC
Mike Painter <mdotp...@att.net> wrote:
>
>
> They claim that their junk is "natural" and "organic" never realizing that
> until very recent times that's where all medicine came from.
Frankly, I have a hard time even getting a consistent definition of
"organic". It's a great catch phrase that sells lots of herbs, vitamins and
the like, and a great way of destroying the GM industry, but just try to
figure out what anybody means when they say it.
Frankly, I think "organic" really means voodoo magic. Somehow, compounds
synthesized in the lab, even if almost identical to ones synthesized by
plants or animals in nature, have some nebulous difference. Probably
something to do with chi or energy fields.
Here in British Columbia there was actually a movement a few years ago to
get this stuff covered by the public Pharmicare system. Fortunately,
responsible doctors convinced the bean counters that with soaring drug
costs, only drugs that actually have some clinical evidence that they do
anything should be paid for by the government. As well, our medical
association has been going after quacks about chelation therapy. They've
pulled at least one doctor's license that I know of. Naturally, all the
"cured" talk about the evil drug company-sponsored medical system
conspiracy.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
Matt Davis
"Natural" is a pet peeve of mine when it comes to adjectives describing
remedies. Arsenic is natural. Botulism toxin is natural. I'm sure that
the FDA has at least some comment on whether or not those things should be
the active ingredients in "natural" remedies.
I'm not sure if "organic" has a legal definition in the US (does anybody
know?). I look at it kind of like the world "ultra" when I see it on a
label. It's catchy, but essentially meaningless to me.
Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see the distinction between
potentially dangerous "natural" drugs and potentially dangerous artificial
drugs when it comes to testing and regulation.
Fred Stone
They do seem to have some legal definition and certification requirements.
http://www.ams.usda.gov/nop/Q&A.html
> Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see the distinction between
> potentially dangerous "natural" drugs and potentially dangerous artificial
> drugs when it comes to testing and regulation.
>
There is a legal distinction between "herbal dietary supplements" and
"drugs".
dkomo
>
> "dkomo" <dkomo...@cris.com> wrote in message
> news:4057B707...@cris.com...
> >
> > Ideally, but this process in the US has become corrupted by two
> > factors: greed and incompetence. I really don't care to defend
> > alternative medicine here, but I'd like to point out that the benefits
> > of modern medicine are quite overstated. In fact, modern medicine
> > ends up *killing* hundreds of thousands of Americans every year. If
> > this happened with alternative medicine there would be a huge public
> > outcry to regulate it. But when it comes to the US medical-industrial
> > complex, there's hardly a ripple.
>
> Take it away and see how many would die. Compare causes of death and death
> rates prior to 1930 with today. Simple scratchs killed back then, they
> rarely do today.
> Drugs alone have saved uncounted numbers.
> In the early 60's I transported a man to a hospital in Sacramento with a
> spinal injury, he dove into a shallow pool. He died and they knew he was
> going to. They could do *nothing*
> 18 months later I did exactly the same thing with a man who dove into a snow
> bank and he suffered exactly the same injury. He is still alive because
> modern medicine advanced over that period.
>
> There is greed, incompetance and plain stupidity in medicine today. Doctors
> follow normal curves and I've seen a lot of the bad end. In the past it was
> mostly incompetance and stupidity, but no sane person would want to go back.
>
If I were involved in a serious accident I'd want all the modern
medicine I could get! Please withold any acupuncture -- no two buts
about it. Modern medicine is excellent in putting people back
together when they suddenly break. It's also great in treating acute
illnesses.
Where it isn't so great is in *curing* chronic illnesses like those
that result from aging: arthritis, diabetes, high blood pressure,
cancer, Alzheimer's, heart disease, and so forth.
I was looking through some magazines at the grocery store this
morning. The latest issue of Fortune has a lead story about the
failure of the war on cancer. A quote that caught my eye was (I'm
paraphrasing here since I don't remember it verbatim): "...but the
percentage of Americans dying from cancer has remained constant since
1970...and since 1950."
On the same page as this quote there's a graph showing the date rate
for cancer per 100,000 population as a function of time. The graph
goes from the 1940's through the present.
It's practically a flat line.
The death rate has remained a constant 200 per 100,000 population for
over 50 years now.
Another statistic sticks in my mind from the lead story in Time
several weeks ago about the outrageous cost of drug prescriptions in
the US. Americans spend far more per capita on health care than any
other developed country. If I remember right, we outspend the next
nearest country by a factor of at least two. But our life expectancy
is way down in the middle of the list, being several years below the
lead nation.
Another example, since dogs with arthritis were mentioned here. It is
hinted that the two leading drugs in treating the symptoms of
arthritis, Celebrex and Vioxx, are not much more effective than
aspirin, and yet they cost at least 10 times as much.
These two drugs are big moneymakers for their respective drug
companies.
What a coincidence.
> >
> > > Drugs you get from the
> > > pharmacy or dispensary are carefully measured, as opposed to the
> practically
> > > random dosages you are going to get from some herbal remedies.
> > >
> >
> > It's the incompetence in dispensing drugs with potentially dangerous
> > side effects that is killing so many people in US hospitals. Either
> > the dosages are too high, or the wrong drugs are given to the wrong
> > people, or the drugs are mixed with others in lethal combinations.
> > These facts are in the public domain, but who pays attention to them?
> If true then supplying the same software to the hospitals that other
> pharmacies carry is a simple solution.
>
> >
> > > No treatment is going to help all of the people all of the time. The
> key is
> > > to develop treatments that can help most of the people most of the time.
> >
> > First, do no harm.
> >
> > > Determining this in a proper, clinical environment, as opposed to "my
> > > great-great-grandmother said applying poultices made of radish and
> chicken
> > > dung will heal infections."
> > >
> > > --
> > > Aaron Clausen
> > > mightym...@hotmail.com
> >
Therion Ware
On Wed, 17 Mar 2004 22:24:46 +0000 (UTC) in talk.origins, dkomo
(dkomo <dkomo...@cris.com>) said, directing the reply to
talk.origins
Probably true, but I suspect that the statistic hides more than it
tells. Was there, for example, anything about survival times, and was
age at death taken into account?
[snip]
--
"Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You."
- Attrib: Pauline Reage.
Inexpensive VHS & other video to CD/DVD conversion?
See: <http://www.Video2CD.com>. 35.00 gets your video on DVD.
all posts to this email address are automatically deleted without being read.
** atheist poster child #1 ** #442.
Kenny Leong
hmmm..I think you're right. Good point actually.
Kenny L.
Kenny Leong
> Acupuncture: Is it an ancient art or a pointless exercise?
I think it's a pointy exercise.
Kenny L.
Kenny Leong
> In article <bjeb50d41jd1umd3k...@4ax.com>, a...@if.com
> says...
> > On Mon, 15 Mar 2004 11:49:48 +0000 (UTC), maf...@yahoo.com (maff)
> > wrote:
> >
> > >More than 4,500 years ago, the legendary Chinese ruler and cultural
> > >hero Huang-di - the "Yellow Emperor" - is said to have created the
> >
> > I thought they were all yellow? :-P *duck*
> >
> > >basic elements of one of the greatest civilisations on Earth. In
> > >addition to founding the philosophy of Taoism, Huang-di is credited
> > >with the invention of writing, the discovery of the pottery wheel, the
> > >breeding of silkworms and the creation of acupuncture.
> >
> > Regardless, it has at least that 20% placebo effect... personally I'd
> > prefer something less frightening and painful though.
> >
> >
>
> don't think any placebo effect would happen with him. A couple of hours
> for some time. We continued with them and he kept walking well and
> seemed much more comfortable than he was. He started eating better
> almost immediately and regained the weight he had lost over the previous
> few months and ended up, at the end, at 73 pounds, about what he always
> weighed.
>
> the middle of them, right after the needles went in. It really relaxed
> him, so pain isn't a factor.. The fright, well that's your deal.
>
> BDK
Isn't acupuncture related to stimulating nerve points or something
like that? I'm guessing that if folks develop something over a quite a
long period of time and the method appears to give obvious results for
lots of people, then it's probably a useful method - provided it
doesn't make us get in a worse condition than what we started with.
Pretty cool how it worked for your dog as well.
I know that with chinese herbal medicine, they also developed that for
many years. It is effective for some kinds of ailments, but of course,
it can't cure every ailment...like cancer. So it's got it's advantages
and it's limitations, just like western medicine. Each have their
advantages and disadvantages.
Kenny L.
John Wilkins
...
> I was looking through some magazines at the grocery store this
> morning. The latest issue of Fortune has a lead story about the
> failure of the war on cancer. A quote that caught my eye was (I'm
> paraphrasing here since I don't remember it verbatim): "...but the
> percentage of Americans dying from cancer has remained constant since
> 1970...and since 1950."
>
> On the same page as this quote there's a graph showing the date rate
> for cancer per 100,000 population as a function of time. The graph
> goes from the 1940's through the present.
>
> It's practically a flat line.
>
> The death rate has remained a constant 200 per 100,000 population for
> over 50 years now.
What is worth noting, though, is what cancers people are dying from.
Leukaemias are now almost entirely treatable, and many brain cancers
too. Hard tissue cancers have resisted treatment, but many haven't, and
individually each cancer has variable stats.
But there's another point worth making, brought home to me by my GP
recently - if you removed all causes of death in males, then they would
all die from prostate cancer - everybody gets it if they are male, live
long enough (i.e., don't die from something else). Hence the cancer rate
ought to be about stable if you lump them all together.
Moreover, they are not all one "disease" - they are a heterogenous group
of diseases. Different etiologies, different biochemical pathways, and
so forth. What causes breast cancer (mutations in p53 I gather, or the
BCRA family of genes) is different to what causes testicular or bone
cancers. They have different mutagens, too. So I would be a bit careful
about these kinds of generalisations.
>
> Another statistic sticks in my mind from the lead story in Time
> several weeks ago about the outrageous cost of drug prescriptions in
> the US. Americans spend far more per capita on health care than any
> other developed country. If I remember right, we outspend the next
> nearest country by a factor of at least two. But our life expectancy
> is way down in the middle of the list, being several years below the
> lead nation.
>
> Another example, since dogs with arthritis were mentioned here. It is
> hinted that the two leading drugs in treating the symptoms of
> arthritis, Celebrex and Vioxx, are not much more effective than
> aspirin, and yet they cost at least 10 times as much.
>
> These two drugs are big moneymakers for their respective drug
> companies.
>
> What a coincidence.
And aspirin is now in the public domain, too. This aspect of modern
medical industry must be addressed, and soon. Also, we should legislate
to release all naturally occurring genetic sequences into the public
domain.
But these are not issues of medical *science* but of economic
corporations law and control.
>
> > >
> > > > Drugs you get from the pharmacy or dispensary are carefully
> > > > measured, as opposed to the practically random dosages you are going
> > > > to get from some herbal remedies.
> > > >
> > >
> > > It's the incompetence in dispensing drugs with potentially dangerous
> > > side effects that is killing so many people in US hospitals. Either
> > > the dosages are too high, or the wrong drugs are given to the wrong
> > > people, or the drugs are mixed with others in lethal combinations.
> > > These facts are in the public domain, but who pays attention to them?
> > If true then supplying the same software to the hospitals that other
> > pharmacies carry is a simple solution.
> >
> > >
> > > > No treatment is going to help all of the people all of the time.
> > > > The key is to develop treatments that can help most of the people
> > > > most of the time.
> > >
> > > First, do no harm.
> > >
> > > > Determining this in a proper, clinical environment, as opposed to
> > > > "my great-great-grandmother said applying poultices made of radish
> > > > and chicken dung will heal infections."
--
dkomo
Don't know. I couldn't read the whole article just standing there at
the news rack. I'm waiting until that issue of Fortune reaches the
local library.
There's also the possibility that the cancer rate has *increased* over
the years and that modern cancer treatment has actually been saving
proportionately more lives, but the death rate appears to have stayed
constant.
But displayed on the same graph there was also the death rate from
heart disease, which declined by at least half. This, however, may
have nothing to do with modern medicine. Rather it may have much to
do with the greater awareness people have today about healthy living:
exercise, weight reduction, quiting smoking, avoiding stress, eating
better, and so on.
dkomo
>
> dkomo <dkomo...@cris.com> wrote:
>
> ...
> > I was looking through some magazines at the grocery store this
> > morning. The latest issue of Fortune has a lead story about the
> > failure of the war on cancer. A quote that caught my eye was (I'm
> > paraphrasing here since I don't remember it verbatim): "...but the
> > percentage of Americans dying from cancer has remained constant since
> > 1970...and since 1950."
> >
> > On the same page as this quote there's a graph showing the date rate
> > for cancer per 100,000 population as a function of time. The graph
> > goes from the 1940's through the present.
> >
> > It's practically a flat line.
> >
> > The death rate has remained a constant 200 per 100,000 population for
> > over 50 years now.
>
> What is worth noting, though, is what cancers people are dying from.
> Leukaemias are now almost entirely treatable, and many brain cancers
> too. Hard tissue cancers have resisted treatment, but many haven't, and
> individually each cancer has variable stats.
>
> But there's another point worth making, brought home to me by my GP
> recently - if you removed all causes of death in males, then they would
> all die from prostate cancer - everybody gets it if they are male, live
> long enough (i.e., don't die from something else). Hence the cancer rate
> ought to be about stable if you lump them all together.
>
It's already occurred to me that the cancer rate may be on the
increase simply because we humans are living longer. So that actually
modern medicine is being effective just keeping the cancer death
constant.
However, the glass-half-empty view is to ask: who by far is the
biggest customer of the medical industry?
Senior citizens.
Looked at how well the medical industry is serving their best
customer, I'd say it should be doing a far better job in curbing the
2nd biggest killer of said customers -- cancer.
In the US it's a political issue as well. Right now corporate America
is pretty controlling the Federal government. As long as Republicans
are dominant in Congress and have the Presidency, little is going to
happen to improve the health care delivery system in this country.
> > > >
> > > > > Drugs you get from the pharmacy or dispensary are carefully
> > > > > measured, as opposed to the practically random dosages you are going
> > > > > to get from some herbal remedies.
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > It's the incompetence in dispensing drugs with potentially dangerous
> > > > side effects that is killing so many people in US hospitals. Either
> > > > the dosages are too high, or the wrong drugs are given to the wrong
> > > > people, or the drugs are mixed with others in lethal combinations.
> > > > These facts are in the public domain, but who pays attention to them?
> > > If true then supplying the same software to the hospitals that other
> > > pharmacies carry is a simple solution.
> > >
> > > >
> > > > > No treatment is going to help all of the people all of the time.
> > > > > The key is to develop treatments that can help most of the people
> > > > > most of the time.
> > > >
> > > > First, do no harm.
> > > >
> > > > > Determining this in a proper, clinical environment, as opposed to
> > > > > "my great-great-grandmother said applying poultices made of radish
> > > > > and chicken dung will heal infections."
>
> --
> John Wilkins
> john...@wilkins.id.au http://www.wilkins.id.au
> "Men mark it when they hit, but do not mark it when they miss"
> - Francis Bacon
BDK
kenny_t...@yahoo.com says...
I guess that nerve stimulation, or maybe blocking might be a better way
to think about it. The way it seemed to almost knock my dog out was
pretty impressive. He twitched pretty good as the needles were inserted,
but he didn't do anymore than just turn around and look at the vet's
hands. After the first few times, his tail wagged until about half the
needles were in, then he would get this odd look on his face, and then
his eyelids would start drooping. I guess it either gave him some kind
of buzz, or it cut the pain out. He slept like a rock the night after
the treatments. He was never a good sleeper, even when he was old, but I
could walk in and out of the room without waking him.
One of my present dogs sleeps like this all the time. It worried me for
a while, I was pretty convinced something was wrong with him. He yawns
all the time, and can go to sleep and right into dreaming in a couple of
minutes. I spent a lot of money getting tests done. The best thing the
vets could come up with is "He's a sleeper, and doesn't waste energy".
This is a perfect description. He is the most laid back dog I have ever
seen and friends didn't really believe me when I told them what a psycho
he is at times. Ballistic doesn't come close to describing him when he
goes off. One of my friend's was over and the dog spent most of his time
sleeping and nagging us for head scratches. Then he left and came back,
running on his back legs only, (Think Raptor from Jurassic Park) and
body slammed my other dog into the couch, and spent the next 20 minutes
doing the orbit thing around the house at 40 MPH, and then mauling sis,
who just doesn't get it.
BDK
Mike Painter
> Therion Ware wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, 17 Mar 2004 22:24:46 +0000 (UTC) in talk.origins, dkomo
> > (dkomo <dkomo...@cris.com>) said, directing the reply to
> > talk.origins
> > >
> > >over 50 years now.
> >
> > Probably true, but I suspect that the statistic hides more than it
> > tells. Was there, for example, anything about survival times, and was
> > age at death taken into account?
> >
>
> Don't know. I couldn't read the whole article just standing there at
> the news rack. I'm waiting until that issue of Fortune reaches the
> local library.
>
> There's also the possibility that the cancer rate has *increased* over
> the years and that modern cancer treatment has actually been saving
> proportionately more lives, but the death rate appears to have stayed
> constant.
Cancer for the most part is a disease of the old. We are now living long
enough to die of it.
I once saw an interview with two older doctors in superb physical condition
talking about *not* dying fast from a heart attack but slowly from some of
the nasties.
But we are just getting started with medicine. Remember Doc on Star Trek "My
god, they used knives back then."
Ian Musgrave & Peta O'Donohue
Address altered to avoid spam, delete RemoveInsert
On Wed, 17 Mar 2004 22:24:46 +0000 (UTC), dkomo <dkomo...@cris.com>
wrote:
[snip]
>Another example, since dogs with arthritis were mentioned here. It is
>hinted that the two leading drugs in treating the symptoms of
>arthritis, Celebrex and Vioxx, are not much more effective than
>aspirin, and yet they cost at least 10 times as much.
The're not _meant_ to be more effective than aspirin, what they don't
have (or have far less of) is the side effects of aspirin, so people
with chronic pain, such as arthritis sufferes, can take them without
having their stomach errode away and then die of bleeding ulcers.
Cheers! Ian
=====================================================
Ian Musgrave Peta O'Donohue,Jack Francis,Michael James and Andrew Thomas Musgrave
reynella@RemoveInsret_werple.mira.net.au http://home.mira.net/~reynella/
Southern Sky Watch http://www.abc.net.au/science/space/default.htm
Ian Musgrave & Peta O'Donohue
Address altered to avoid spam, delete RemoveInsert
On Wed, 17 Mar 2004 18:52:48 +0000 (UTC), "Mike Painter"
<mdotp...@att.net> wrote:
>"Joe Dunckley" <joseph.dunck...@uwe.ac.uk> wrote in message
>news:opr40gpe...@news.individual.de...
>> On Wed, 17 Mar 2004 01:58:16 +0000 (UTC), dkomo <dkomo...@cris.com>
>> wrote:
>> > AC wrote:
[snip]
>> > Ideally, but this process in the US has become corrupted by two
>> > factors: greed and incompetence. I really don't care to defend
>> > alternative medicine here, but I'd like to point out that the benefits
>> > of modern medicine are quite overstated. In fact, modern medicine
>> > ends up *killing* hundreds of thousands of Americans every year.
Satistics please. Modern medicine _does_ kill pople, with adverse
reactions to drugs, or incorrect dosages given, complications of
surgery or incorrect diagnoses. But HUNDREDS of thousands of people?
That's a substantial fraction of your patient population.
>> >If
>> > this happened with alternative medicine there would be a huge public
>> > outcry to regulate it.
It does happen in alternative medicine, however, because the record
keeping and follow up of patients is fairly non existant, compared to
the obsseive record keeping in standard medicine, it's much less
obvious. Also when it does happen, the reaction to any proposed
legislation is "see standard medicine is bullying alternative nedicine
again" (in Australia recently, when as a result if abysmal quality
control in a natural medicines maufacyurer people got toxic quantities
of plant product, legislation to imporve quality control of herbal
medicines was opposed on this basis).
>> >But when it comes to the US medical-industrial
>> > complex, there's hardly a ripple.
What planet are you on. The medical industry is one of the most
regulated out. When a drugs has even the nerest suspicion of causing
untoward side effects, it gets pulled (if the flocks of litigation
lawyers don't get there first)
[snip]
>Sincere or not, they ignore the fact that most of these potions *are* very
>old and were abandoned when either they were found ineffective or the
>ingredient that was effective was isolated.
>
>They claim that their junk is "natural" and "organic" never realizing that
>until very recent times that's where all medicine came from.
And still does, 25% of drugs contain material extracted from plants,
and 10% of the top selling drugs are based around plant extracts.
Mike Painter
"Ian Musgrave & Peta O'Donohue" <reynella_R...@werple.mira.net.au>
wrote in message news:o73k501e00dnofpgm...@4ax.com...
> [snip]
> >> > Ideally, but this process in the US has become corrupted by two
> >> > factors: greed and incompetence. I really don't care to defend
> >> > alternative medicine here, but I'd like to point out that the
benefits
> >> > of modern medicine are quite overstated. In fact, modern medicine
> >> > ends up *killing* hundreds of thousands of Americans every year.
>
> Satistics please. Modern medicine _does_ kill pople, with adverse
> reactions to drugs, or incorrect dosages given, complications of
> surgery or incorrect diagnoses. But HUNDREDS of thousands of people?
> That's a substantial fraction of your patient population.
Here's one that is from a somewhat biased source (Check the home page)
He seems to quote from several sources but does not comment on some of the
discrepancies in teh numbers.
http://www.mercola.com/2000/jul/30/doctors_death.htm
>
> [snip]
Ian Musgrave
Following up my own message
"Ian Musgrave & Peta O'Donohue" <reynella_R...@werple.mira.net.au> wrote in message news:<7b4k509t1s9ru36oq...@4ax.com>...
> G'Day All
> Address altered to avoid spam, delete RemoveInsert
>
> On Wed, 17 Mar 2004 22:24:46 +0000 (UTC), dkomo <dkomo...@cris.com>
> wrote:
> [snip]
> >Another example, since dogs with arthritis were mentioned here. It is
> >hinted that the two leading drugs in treating the symptoms of
> >arthritis, Celebrex and Vioxx, are not much more effective than
> >aspirin, and yet they cost at least 10 times as much.
They cost 10 times as much because new drugs have to pass far more
stingent tests of efficacy and safety that things like asirin did (and
aspirin has been manufactured for nearly 100 years, so we know how to
make it cheaply in bulk). Longer and more comprehensive preclinical
and clinical trials are required, and these cost money. Conservative
costs to bring a drug to market are approximately half a billion
dollars. So the cost of a new drug reflects both how hard it is to
manufacture (and the coxibs like celebrex and voixx [who comes up with
these names] aren't anywhere near as easy as aspirin to make) and
recovering the cost of development.
> The're not _meant_ to be more effective than aspirin, what they don't
> have (or have far less of) is the side effects of aspirin, so people
> with chronic pain, such as arthritis sufferes, can take them without
> having their stomach errode away and then die of bleeding ulcers.
I have on my desk an advert for a herbal pain reliever called
Willowbark3000, it makes no mention of adverse side effects at all.
However, the pain relief properties of Willowbark are due to salicyn
(a chemical similar to aspirin), any dose of Willow bark that has the
same analgesic (pain relief) effect as aspirin will have the same
profile of adverse side effects as aspirin. In fact, you will have
more actual side effects, as salciyn is more likely than aspirin to
induce gastric bleeding, and also causes erosion of the lining of the
mouth. Aspirin was a step forward in pain releif for many reasons,
_including_ having fewer side effects than the natural therapy. Just
as the coxibs are a step forward by having fwere side effects (the
drug companies have hyped them up, but you are far less likely to die
from a bleeding ulcer than you would be on aspirin, there is generally
no need to take coxibs rather than asirin for the occasional
headache).
Cheers! Ian
=====================================================
Ian Musgrave Peta O'Donohue,Jack Francis, Michael James and Andrew
Thomas Musgrave
reynella_r...@werple.mira.net.au
http://werple.mira.net.au/~reynella/
Ian Musgrave
"Mike Painter" <mdotp...@att.net> wrote in message news:<dRo6c.31114$Pa7.8...@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>...
> "Ian Musgrave & Peta O'Donohue" <reynella_R...@werple.mira.net.au>
> wrote in message news:o73k501e00dnofpgm...@4ax.com...
> > [snip]
> > >> > Ideally, but this process in the US has become corrupted by two
> > >> > factors: greed and incompetence. I really don't care to defend
> > >> > alternative medicine here, but I'd like to point out that the benefits
> > >> > of modern medicine are quite overstated. In fact, modern medicine
> > >> > ends up *killing* hundreds of thousands of Americans every year.
> >
> > Satistics please. Modern medicine _does_ kill pople, with adverse
> > reactions to drugs, or incorrect dosages given, complications of
> > surgery or incorrect diagnoses. But HUNDREDS of thousands of people?
> > That's a substantial fraction of your patient population.
No, as it turns out it's about 0.7% of the pateint population, see
below.
> Here's one that is from a somewhat biased source (Check the home page)
> He seems to quote from several sources but does not comment on some of the
> discrepancies in teh numbers.
> http://www.mercola.com/2000/jul/30/doctors_death.htm
Okay I went to the original journal articles (Barbara Starfield
JAMA. 2000;284:483-485.
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/284/4/483
Jason Lazarou, MSc; Bruce H. Pomeranz, MD, PhD; Paul N. Corey, PhD
JAMA. 1998;279:1200-1205.)
Dr. Starfield gives estimates of deaths from all medical causes, from
unnecessary surgery, medication errors in hospitals, other errors in
hospitals, nosocomial infections in hospitals and nonerror, adverse
effects of medications.
Her figures range from 48,000 to 225,000 deaths due to medical causes.
Now 225,000 that is a LOT, but it represents 0.7% of the hospital
patient population per year. I was flabergasted to learn that there
are 33,000,000 (yes that's 33 MILLION) patients in US hospitals per
year. That's a heck of a whack of your overall population.
Now the biggest part of the estimates is adverse drug reactions.
According to Lazarou, adverse drug reactions in hospital kill around
0.2% of patients. This may be an an overestimate, as these are
hospital admissions in teaching hospitals, and the sickest and most
diffcult cases go there. Be that as it may, even 0.1% is still a lot
of dead people, and it would be good if this was even lower.
So how do Alternative therapies hold up. We don't know. Unlike
hospitals, where adverse drug reactions are carefull monitored and
obligatorily reported, there is no monitoring of adverse drug
reactions in herbal medicine and dietary suppliments. We know herbal
drugs can kill. Mua hang, a traditional chinese medicine that contains
ephedra, and dietary supplements with ephedra, are known to kill
people, and dietary supplements with ephedra have now been banned due
to their toxic effects. Kava can kill (and has done so), St. Johns
Wort can kill, even accupuncture can kill (mostly through
staphlococcal infection and toxic shock syndrome).
But we can't adequately compare the rate at which herbal remedies etc.
kill compared to standard therapies as there is no obligatory
reporting, and it's estimated that less than 1% of adverse reactions
to alternative medicine are ever reported. However, it is very likley
that adverse drug effects with herbal remedies will be roughly at the
same rate as conventional medicine (as they work in the same ways, any
potent biological substance will have adverse effects in a part of the
patient population), possibly lower as the lack of quality control
often means that the herbal preparation has no active ingredients in
it.
On one hand you can take conventional medicines which have been
rigorously tested for efficacy and safety, with known side effect
profiles, with known small rates of advese drug reactions. Or you can
take herbal/alternative medicines, which have not been shown to work,
which have unknown safety profiles, and which may have no active
ingredient at all. It's your choice.
Cheers! Ian (who is a pharmacologist, and played one once on late
night radio)
=====================================================
Ian Musgrave Peta O'Donohue,Jack Francis, Michael James and Andrew
Thomas Musgrave
reynella_r...@werple.mira.net.au
http://werple.mira.net.au/~reynella/
Mike Painter
"Ian Musgrave" <ianfmu...@yahoo.com.au> wrote in message
news:4001b7c5.04031...@posting.google.com...
> G'Day All
>
> Following up my own message
>
> "Ian Musgrave & Peta O'Donohue" <reynella_R...@werple.mira.net.au>
wrote in message news:<7b4k509t1s9ru36oq...@4ax.com>...
> > G'Day All
> > Address altered to avoid spam, delete RemoveInsert
> >
> > On Wed, 17 Mar 2004 22:24:46 +0000 (UTC), dkomo <dkomo...@cris.com>
> > wrote:
> > [snip]
> > >Another example, since dogs with arthritis were mentioned here. It is
> > >hinted that the two leading drugs in treating the symptoms of
> > >arthritis, Celebrex and Vioxx, are not much more effective than
> > >aspirin, and yet they cost at least 10 times as much.
>
> They cost 10 times as much because new drugs have to pass far more
> stingent tests of efficacy and safety that things like asirin did (and
> aspirin has been manufactured for nearly 100 years, so we know how to
> make it cheaply in bulk). Longer and more comprehensive preclinical
> and clinical trials are required, and these cost money. Conservative
> costs to bring a drug to market are approximately half a billion
> dollars. So the cost of a new drug reflects both how hard it is to
> manufacture (and the coxibs like celebrex and voixx [who comes up with
> these names] aren't anywhere near as easy as aspirin to make) and
> recovering the cost of development.
I agree with most of what you said but the costs here in the US are far out
of line with other countries.
I know what universities (at least in California ) charge for a limited set
of drugs and it is far less than discount drug stores charge. I also know
that, if it was legal, a pharmacist in California could pop over the border
to Canada, buy retail, bring it home and sell it for less here with a
greater margin.
Finding out that one of the smaller drug companies flew all their sales
staff and family to Paris for a week, all expenses paid, does not impress
either.
dkomo
>
> G'Day All
>
> Following up my own message
>
> "Ian Musgrave & Peta O'Donohue" <reynella_R...@werple.mira.net.au> wrote in message news:<7b4k509t1s9ru36oq...@4ax.com>...
> > G'Day All
> > Address altered to avoid spam, delete RemoveInsert
> >
> > On Wed, 17 Mar 2004 22:24:46 +0000 (UTC), dkomo <dkomo...@cris.com>
> > wrote:
> > [snip]
> > >Another example, since dogs with arthritis were mentioned here. It is
> > >hinted that the two leading drugs in treating the symptoms of
> > >arthritis, Celebrex and Vioxx, are not much more effective than
> > >aspirin, and yet they cost at least 10 times as much.
>
> They cost 10 times as much because new drugs have to pass far more
> stingent tests of efficacy and safety that things like asirin did (and
> aspirin has been manufactured for nearly 100 years, so we know how to
> make it cheaply in bulk). Longer and more comprehensive preclinical
> and clinical trials are required, and these cost money. Conservative
> costs to bring a drug to market are approximately half a billion
> dollars. So the cost of a new drug reflects both how hard it is to
> manufacture (and the coxibs like celebrex and voixx [who comes up with
> these names] aren't anywhere near as easy as aspirin to make) and
> recovering the cost of development.
>
According to a recent story in Time magazine about the high cost of
drugs, the pharmaceutical industry in the US is the most profitable of
all industry groups in terms of profit margins. They spend large
amounts of money lobbying in Washington for legislation favorable to
them. Big Pharma, as the lobbying group is known, is considered one
of the most effective lobbies that there is. They have a great deal
of influence over the Food and Drug Administration. Finally, the
pharmaceutical industry spends hundreds of millions of dollars on
advertising. In the US commercials for *prescription* drugs are
everywhere on TV, as are full page glossy ads in the leading
magazines.
Some factoids from the story:
Return on revenue
Pfizer Inc. 28.4%
Eli Lilly 24.4%
Intel Corp. 11.6%
General Electric 10.7%
Exon 6.2%
Daimler Chrysler 3.3%
General Motors 0.9%
Drug sales per capita Life expectancy
U.S. $654 77
Japan $421 81
Germany $217 78
Italy $209 79
Britain $197 78
Spain $190 79
"The prices Americans pay for prescription drugs, which are far higher
than those paid by citizens of any other developed country, help
explain why the pharmaceutical industry is -- and has been for years
-- the most profitable of all businesses in the U.S. In the annual
Fortune 500 survey, the pharmaceutical industry topped the list of the
most profitable industries, with a return of 17% on revenue."
--Time, Feb 2, 2004
rich hammett
Yes, the US subsidizes drug production for the world. We're the
wealthy ones, after all.
Drug development would not be happening if they didn't get the
returns. Why do people always concentrate on the benefits that
mid-level employees are getting when they think something
costs too much? If it could be done cheaper, somebody would be
doing it--see the generic drug market.
Unless you have evidence of some immoral bias that's making
drugs cost more in a way that all other products aren't
subject to, I'm not too worried about a sales staff getting
a vacation.
rich
--
-to reply, it's hot not warm
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
\ Rich Hammett http://home.hiwaay.net/~rhammett
/ "Better the pride that resides in a citizen of the world;
\ than the pride that divides
/ when a colorful rag is unfurled."
Mike Painter
"rich hammett" <bubba...@warmmail.com> wrote in message
news:105mi4l...@corp.supernews.com...
poor people to buys drugs at a cost similar to what a collage student pays.
Walk into any busy drugstore on any day and watch for a few hours. You will
witness people walking away from the drugs they need because they do not
have the money.
Perhaps if the US subsidized their own people we might live a bit longer.
Many doctors do that now on an informal basis because they know that no
matter how much it costs at the drugstore they have a limitless supply of
free samples.
Richard S. Crawford
Indeed. For three years I was only able to find low-paying,
non-insurance-providing jobs. I was very fortunate that I found a
pulmonologist for my asthma that would provide me with all of the
samples I needed and regularly only charge me the minimal amount for
each visit, no matter how extensive the treatment he gave me was.
Now that I happen to have a generous benefits package through my current
job, I of course pay the co-pays for all of my drugs and office visits.
But I still go to the same office (the doctor himself retired a couple
of years ago, very sadly). I thank God that there are doctors out there
who believe in taking that kind of care of people, in spite of the
apparently enormous health-insurance industry pressure to allow poor and
sick people to die of easily-but-expensively-treated illnesses.
rich hammett
This is unrelated to your previous point. Sales staff will not
work for free. Sales staff will only work for competitive salary
and benefits. It's unclear what business model you are proposing
for the pharma industry.
Mike Painter
> > Perhaps if the US subsidized their own people we might live a bit
longer.
> > Many doctors do that now on an informal basis because they know that no
> > matter how much it costs at the drugstore they have a limitless supply
of
> > free samples.
>
> This is unrelated to your previous point. Sales staff will not
> work for free. Sales staff will only work for competitive salary
> and benefits. It's unclear what business model you are proposing
> for the pharma industry.
>
said that if the pharmaceutical companies have enough money to subsidize the
world, give unlimited samples, and provide exorbitant fringe benefits to a
large number of people, then we, who pay the taxes that support a lot of
this research should not have to pay more than others.
Ian Musgrave & Peta O'Donohue
Address altered to avoid spam, delete RemoveInsert
On Fri, 19 Mar 2004 14:25:45 +0000 (UTC), dkomo <dkomo...@cris.com>
wrote:
And how did they calculate this?
>They spend large
>amounts of money lobbying in Washington for legislation favorable to
>them. Big Pharma, as the lobbying group is known, is considered one
>of the most effective lobbies that there is. They have a great deal
>of influence over the Food and Drug Administration.
Which quite often bounces their drugs. In the case of the coxibs, they
restricted the uses for them ,and recently put even more restrictions
of them in the face of concerted drug company opposition.
>Finally, the
>pharmaceutical industry spends hundreds of millions of dollars on
>advertising. In the US commercials for *prescription* drugs are
>everywhere on TV, as are full page glossy ads in the leading
>magazines.
THIS is wrong, wrong, wrong and should be stopped.
>Some factoids from the story:
>
> Return on revenue
>
> Pfizer Inc. 28.4%
> Eli Lilly 24.4%
> Intel Corp. 11.6%
> General Electric 10.7%
> Exon 6.2%
> Daimler Chrysler 3.3%
> General Motors 0.9%
Again, how are these figure calculated?
> Drug sales per capita Life expectancy
>
> U.S. $654 77
> Japan $421 81
> Germany $217 78
> Italy $209 79
> Britain $197 78
> Spain $190 79
Why anyone would expect a simple relationship between drugs sales and
life expectancy, I don't know. The major difference here is medical
system. The US has a system where a small fraction of it's citizens
have access to the best possible medical care, while a large
proportion of its citizens have VERY limited access to any form of
medical care. Germany, Spain, Britain and Spain have medical systems
where ALL citizens have access to adequate medical care. Not to
pharmaceutical benefit systems that severely limit the kinds of drugs
patients have access to, the super expensive ultra-new drugs are far
less likely to be used.
As well, American citizens are more likely to be obese, a major health
risk factor, less likely to be aerobically fit and more likely to have
problems with alcoholism. These are things no pills can fix at the
moment (despite intensive research into appetite suppressants).
>"The prices Americans pay for prescription drugs, which are far higher
>than those paid by citizens of any other developed country,
Because other governments subsidize those medications.
>help
>explain why the pharmaceutical industry is -- and has been for years
>-- the most profitable of all businesses in the U.S. In the annual
>Fortune 500 survey, the pharmaceutical industry topped the list of the
>most profitable industries, with a return of 17% on revenue."
Cheers! Ian
=====================================================
Ian Musgrave Peta O'Donohue,Jack Francis,Michael James and Andrew Thomas Musgrave
reynella@RemoveInsret_werple.mira.net.au http://home.mira.net/~reynella/
Ian Musgrave & Peta O'Donohue
Address altered to avoid spam, delete RemoveInsert
On Fri, 19 Mar 2004 21:46:25 +0000 (UTC), "Mike Painter"
<mdotp...@att.net> wrote:
>"rich hammett" <bubba...@warmmail.com> wrote in message
>news:105mi4l...@corp.supernews.com...
>> In talk.origins Mike Painter <mdotp...@att.net> sanoi, hitaasti kuin
>hämähäkki:
>> > "Ian Musgrave" <ianfmu...@yahoo.com.au> wrote in message
>> > news:4001b7c5.04031...@posting.google.com...
>> >> "Ian Musgrave & Peta O'Donohue"
><reynella_R...@werple.mira.net.au>
>> > wrote in message news:<7b4k509t1s9ru36oq...@4ax.com>...
>> >> > On Wed, 17 Mar 2004 22:24:46 +0000 (UTC), dkomo
><dkomo...@cris.com>
>> >> > wrote:
>> >> > [snip]
>> >> > >Another example, since dogs with arthritis were mentioned here. It
>is
>> >> > >hinted that the two leading drugs in treating the symptoms of
>> >> > >arthritis, Celebrex and Vioxx, are not much more effective than
>> >> > >aspirin, and yet they cost at least 10 times as much.
>> >>
>> >> They cost 10 times as much because new drugs have to pass far more
>> >> stingent tests of efficacy and safety that things like asirin did (and
>> >> aspirin has been manufactured for nearly 100 years, so we know how to
>> >> make it cheaply in bulk). Longer and more comprehensive preclinical
>> >> and clinical trials are required, and these cost money. Conservative
>> >> costs to bring a drug to market are approximately half a billion
>> >> dollars. So the cost of a new drug reflects both how hard it is to
>> >> manufacture (and the coxibs like celebrex and voixx [who comes up with
>> >> these names] aren't anywhere near as easy as aspirin to make) and
>> >> recovering the cost of development.
>>
>> > I agree with most of what you said but the costs here in the US are far out
>> > of line with other countries.
Far out of line? Costs of prescription drugs in many other countries
are subsidized by the respective governments (for example Australia,
Canada and the UK, drugs that are available through the Pharmaceutical
Benefit Scheme or local equivalent are cheaper because they are
subsidized by their respective governments.
Australia also tends to get the PBS drugs cheaper as well, because the
government is a single, large buyer, and can negotiate bulk discounts.
>> > I know what universities (at least in California ) charge for a limited set
>> > of drugs and it is far less than discount drug stores charge. I also know
>> > that, if it was legal, a pharmacist in California could pop over the border
>> > to Canada, buy retail, bring it home and sell it for less here with a
>> > greater margin.
Canada's prescription drugs are subsidized in a similar manner to
Australia's. The difference in US to Australia/Canada prices in one of
government health policy, rather than costs of drug production
>> > Finding out that one of the smaller drug companies flew all their sales
>> > staff and family to Paris for a week, all expenses paid, does not impress
>> > either.
Reference please? Drug companies are notoriously tight with their
money, and I can't see this happening (Unless it's a biotech firm of
around 10 people, who are also notorious for doing really stupid
things, which is why most biotech firms go bust). Note that report
says they flew the SALES staff, not the research staff, or development
staff, or the people who submit drugs registration packages to the
FDA/TGA/MRB. who actually did the work
Even then, lets say a week in Paris costs around $5,000 in airfares,
accommodation etc. per person (not too conservative based on my last
overseas trip, providing you don't stay at outrageous hotels). For a
firm with 100 sales staff (which would not be a smallish firm in my
books), that's $500,000 or half a million dollars, which is 0.1% of
the cost of getting a _single_ new drug to market. In any year a
typical medium sized drug company is bring 10 drugs up for
registration, of which about 50% will not make it.
>> Yes, the US subsidizes drug production for the world. We're the
>> wealthy ones, after all.
No it does not, there are a many European drug companies producing new
drug entities as there are US. The price of European coxibs is not
noticeably cheaper than US produced coxibs.
>> Drug development would not be happening if they didn't get the
>> returns. Why do people always concentrate on the benefits that
>> mid-level employees are getting when they think something
>> costs too much? If it could be done cheaper, somebody would be
>> doing it--see the generic drug market.
>>
>> Unless you have evidence of some immoral bias that's making
>> drugs cost more in a way that all other products aren't
>> subject to, I'm not too worried about a sales staff getting
>> a vacation.
>Paid vacation, the proceeds from which could allow a very large number of
>poor people to buys drugs at a cost similar to what a collage student pays.
At 0.1% of the cost of developing a single new drug? I think not.
>Walk into any busy drugstore on any day and watch for a few hours. You will
>witness people walking away from the drugs they need because they do not
>have the money.
Over the counter drugs and prescription drugs are not the same things.
OTC drugs are long out of patent, and about as cheap as you can get
them.
>Perhaps if the US subsidized their own people we might live a bit longer.
>Many doctors do that now on an informal basis because they know that no
>matter how much it costs at the drugstore they have a limitless supply of
>free samples.
This is a failure of US health policy, rather than the drug companies
(not the drug companies are _entirely_ blameless). However, US health
policy has inadequate safety nets for the poor for prescription drugs.
In Australia, not only are critical drugs subsidized through the PBS,
but special at risk groups (pensioners, the poor etc) get even bigger
discounts on these drugs. There are lots of things you can complain
about in Drug company behavior, however drug prices for new drugs
generally reflects the cost of development and production.
Cheers! Ian
=====================================================
Ian Musgrave Peta O'Donohue,Jack Francis,Michael James and Andrew Thomas Musgrave
reynella@RemoveInsret_werple.mira.net.au http://home.mira.net/~reynella/
Mike Painter
> G'Day All
> >> > Finding out that one of the smaller drug companies flew all their
sales
> >> > staff and family to Paris for a week, all expenses paid, does not
impress
> >> > either.
>
> Reference please? Drug companies are notoriously tight with their
> money, and I can't see this happening (Unless it's a biotech firm of
> around 10 people, who are also notorious for doing really stupid
> things, which is why most biotech firms go bust). Note that report
> says they flew the SALES staff, not the research staff, or development
> staff, or the people who submit drugs registration packages to the
> FDA/TGA/MRB. who actually did the work
Can't give you a reference but could probably dig up the name of the nurse
as CSUC, Chico.
She was the wife of one of the salesmen.
It is the salesman or woman who brings in the money. It is also the sales
staff that educates the doctors (which is scary) and gives out the samples.
They are rewarding the people who sell the sizzle.
dkomo
>
[snip]
> > Return on revenue
> >
> > Pfizer Inc. 28.4%
> > Eli Lilly 24.4%
> > Intel Corp. 11.6%
> > General Electric 10.7%
> > Exon 6.2%
> > Daimler Chrysler 3.3%
> > General Motors 0.9%
>
> Again, how are these figure calculated?
Huh? You take net income (profit) for a company and divide by total
revenue (sales). Then multiply by 100 to convert to percentage.
>
> > Drug sales per capita Life expectancy
> >
> > U.S. $654 77
> > Japan $421 81
> > Germany $217 78
> > Italy $209 79
> > Britain $197 78
> > Spain $190 79
>
> Why anyone would expect a simple relationship between drugs sales and
> life expectancy, I don't know.
I don't think that was the expectation. The table illustrates that
we're wasting a great deal of money and not getting better health as a
result. Also, I'd guess the other countries use a lot fewer drugs
than does the U.S., which is a pill-popping country with doctors that
famously overprescribe drugs and push aggressive medical treatments.
The major difference here is medical
> system. The US has a system where a small fraction of it's citizens
> have access to the best possible medical care, while a large
> proportion of its citizens have VERY limited access to any form of
> medical care. Germany, Spain, Britain and Spain have medical systems
> where ALL citizens have access to adequate medical care. Not to
> pharmaceutical benefit systems that severely limit the kinds of drugs
> patients have access to, the super expensive ultra-new drugs are far
> less likely to be used.
>
> As well, American citizens are more likely to be obese, a major health
> risk factor, less likely to be aerobically fit and more likely to have
> problems with alcoholism. These are things no pills can fix at the
> moment (despite intensive research into appetite suppressants).
>
> >"The prices Americans pay for prescription drugs, which are far higher
> >than those paid by citizens of any other developed country,
>
> Because other governments subsidize those medications.
>
No, I think other governments simply refuse to pay the higher prices,
and the drug companies sell at the lower prices because they can still
make a decent profit and don't want to lose the potential business.
KLM
O'Donohue" <reynella_R...@werple.mira.net.au> wrote:
>Far out of line? Costs of prescription drugs in many other countries
>are subsidized by the respective governments (for example Australia,
>Canada and the UK, drugs that are available through the Pharmaceutical
>Benefit Scheme or local equivalent are cheaper because they are
>subsidized by their respective governments.
>
Not so. Drugs are not subsidized in Canada.
From FORTUNE Magazine March 8, 2004 issue. The New Drug War, pg 148,
on Canada's online drug resales to the US.
"In Canada, for instance, a federal board effectively sets celings on
the prices of patented drugs, while each province exterts further
downward pressure by creating formularies and capping re-imbursements
under its social insurance plan. (It is only brand-name drugs that
are cheaper in Canada; generics actually cost less in the U.S. because
of greatewr competition.)"
Larry Moran
[snip]
> Far out of line? Costs of prescription drugs in many other countries
> are subsidized by the respective governments (for example Australia,
> Canada and the UK, drugs that are available through the Pharmaceutical
> Benefit Scheme or local equivalent are cheaper because they are
> subsidized by their respective governments.
There are three main reasons why drug prices are cheaper in Canada than
in the USA. Subsidy isn't one of them.
The prices of certain prescription drugs are regulated by the Patented
Medicine Prices Review Board. This body sets the prices of drugs that
are only available from a single source because some company holds a
patent. The Board usually sets a price that is about the same as the
price in Europe. This price is often 30-50% cheaper than the price in
the USA. The pharmaceutical company is obliged to sell the drug at that
price.
The second reason is that provincial governments negotiate the price
of drugs when there are multiple sources of the same drug. By setting
the price that the health plans will pay they effectively support the
company that supplies the drug at the best price. Because of universal
medical coverage by the provinces they have a great deal of influence
when it comes to the price of health care. Most private insurance
companies in the USA do not negotiate with pharmaceutical companies
for the best price.
The third reason is that Canada permits generic drug companies to
manufacture certain drugs - mostly those whose patent has expired.
This means that the generics can sell much cheaper. Often the threat
of allowing a generic to make a drug will result in a price reduction.
> Australia also tends to get the PBS drugs cheaper as well, because
> the government is a single, large buyer, and can negotiate bulk
> discounts.
That's the same as the second reason listed above.
[snip]
> Canada's prescription drugs are subsidized in a similar manner to
> Australia's. The difference in US to Australia/Canada prices in one
> of government health policy, rather than costs of drug production
Perhaps we have a different understanding of "subsidy"? As far as I
know the price of drugs at the drug store is the price that the consumer
pays and this is the same price that the health plan pays to the drug
companies. In other words, there is no "subsidy" in the sense that
the government pays more to the drug company than the price in the
drug store.
If there really was a subsidy then the Canadian government would be
very upset about Americans buying drugs in Canada or through the
internet drug companies. It would mean that the Canadian government
was subsidizing American citizens. As far as I know, it doesn't
subsidize Americans and it doesn't subsidize Canadians.
Larry Moran
Matt Silberstein
O'Donohue" <reynella_R...@werple.mira.net.au>:
[snip]
>Canada's prescription drugs are subsidized in a similar manner to
>Australia's. The difference in US to Australia/Canada prices in one of
>government health policy, rather than costs of drug production
American drug prices are an odd duck. Let us consider
prescription drug X. If I go to the pharmacy without health
insurance it will cost me $100. If I go with health insurance it
will cost $5. So you assume my insurance company pays $95. Wrong,
my insurance company negotiates the price way down to, say, $50.
So the uninsured, not the government, subsidizes the cost.
The system is broken in may ways for many reasons.
[snip]
--
Matt Silberstein
Donate to the C.A.N.D.L.E.S. Museum, burnt down by arsonists who wrote
"Remember Timothy McVeigh" on the wall.
C.A.N.D.L.E.S. stands for Children of Auschwitz Nazi Deadly Lab Experiments
Survivors.
www.candles-museum.com
KLM
<bubba...@warmmail.com> wrote:
>
>Drug development would not be happening if they didn't get the
>returns. Why do people always concentrate on the benefits that
>mid-level employees are getting when they think something
>costs too much? If it could be done cheaper, somebody would be
>doing it--see the generic drug market.
>
Everyone should read the current edition of FORTUNE Magazine. March
22, 2004. The cover story is "Why We're losing the War on Cancer" by
Clinton Leaf.
This is one of the most balanced and informative articles I have ever
come across on cancer research, drugs and the health delivery system.
The bad news is that deaths from cancer is the same as it was 50 years
ago, there is no cure, no one knows the cause of cancer. For all the
hundreds of billions of dollars spent on new drug development none
of them are any better.
Noelie S. Alito
>
> "Ian Musgrave & Peta O'Donohue" <reynella_R...@werple.mira.net.au>
> wrote in message news:9dfp501i8v71cmb8b...@4ax.com...
> > G'Day All
> > >> > Finding out that one of the smaller drug companies flew all
> > >> > their sales staff and family to Paris for a week, all expenses
> > >> > paid, does not impress either.
> >
> > Reference please? Drug companies are notoriously tight with their
> > money, and I can't see this happening (Unless it's a biotech firm of
> > around 10 people, who are also notorious for doing really stupid
> > things, which is why most biotech firms go bust). Note that report
> > says they flew the SALES staff, not the research staff, or development
> > staff, or the people who submit drugs registration packages to the
> > FDA/TGA/MRB. who actually did the work
Salespeople are commonly given extravagant rewards for meeting quota,
independent of the compensation in the rest of a company. It is often
in the form of a group trip (to a resort, say), where award ceremonies
and rah-rah presentations are interleaved with hard partying and playing.
This is built in to the Sales Department budgets, and in many industries
is considered as indispensable a sales expense as brochures and phone
bills. The majority of the company employees may have no clue that
this sort of thing goes on.
> Can't give you a reference but could probably dig up the name of the
> nurse as CSUC, Chico. She was the wife of one of the salesmen.
I have attended two annual company Sales Club trips as the wife of a
special guest. For an engineering nerd like me, it was an otherworldly
experience, but I recognized that project plaques and T-shirts wouldn't
work as rewards for go-go salespeople.
> It is the salesman or woman who brings in the money. It is also the sales
> staff that educates the doctors (which is scary) and gives out the samples.
> They are rewarding the people who sell the sizzle.
Survival of the Profitablest. Same old same old.
Noelie
--
"Rhyming with 'goalie' for over 43 years."
rich hammett
If you got that info from Fortune, I'd recommend getting your
science news from another source.
AC
> In talk.origins KLM <klm...@yahoo.com> sanoi, hitaasti kuin hämähäkki:
>> On Fri, 19 Mar 2004 19:15:01 +0000 (UTC), rich hammett
>> <bubba...@warmmail.com> wrote:
>
>>>Drug development would not be happening if they didn't get the
>>>returns. Why do people always concentrate on the benefits that
>>>mid-level employees are getting when they think something
>>>costs too much? If it could be done cheaper, somebody would be
>>>doing it--see the generic drug market.
>
>> Everyone should read the current edition of FORTUNE Magazine. March
>> 22, 2004. The cover story is "Why We're losing the War on Cancer" by
>> Clinton Leaf.
>
>> This is one of the most balanced and informative articles I have ever
>> come across on cancer research, drugs and the health delivery system.
>
>> The bad news is that deaths from cancer is the same as it was 50 years
>> ago, there is no cure, no one knows the cause of cancer. For all the
>> hundreds of billions of dollars spent on new drug development none
>> of them are any better.
>
> If you got that info from Fortune, I'd recommend getting your
> science news from another source.
Indeed. I don't see how anyone can make such an outrageous claim
considering statistics showing cancer survival rates are improving. I
suspect that our fine poster finds it "one of the most balanced and
informative articles" that poster has ever read because it fits with their
preconceptions. Beyond that, why would anyone read Fortune magazine for
articles about cancer?
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
Ian Musgrave & Peta O'Donohue
Address altered to avoid spam, delete RemoveInsert
On Sat, 20 Mar 2004 21:16:27 +0000 (UTC), "Mike Painter"
<mdotp...@att.net> wrote:
>
>"rich hammett" <bubba...@warmmail.com> wrote in message
>news:105p96t...@corp.supernews.com...
> > > Perhaps if the US subsidized their own people we might live a bit
>longer.
>> > Many doctors do that now on an informal basis because they know that no
>> > matter how much it costs at the drugstore they have a limitless supply
>of
>> > free samples.
>>
>> This is unrelated to your previous point. Sales staff will not
>> work for free. Sales staff will only work for competitive salary
>> and benefits. It's unclear what business model you are proposing
>> for the pharma industry.
>>
>I'm not proposing a model, nor have I said a salesman should work free. I've
>said that if the pharmaceutical companies have enough money to subsidize the
>world,
They don't. Heck, we can't convince them to make anti-HIV drugs
available at affordable preices to African antions
>give unlimited samples,
They don't.
>and provide exorbitant fringe benefits to a
>large number of people,
They don't.
>then we, who pay the taxes that support a lot of
>this research should not have to pay more than others.
We don't, drug development comes straight out of the drug companies
own pockets.
Cheers! Ian
=====================================================
Ian Musgrave Peta O'Donohue,Jack Francis,Michael James and Andrew Thomas Musgrave
reynella@RemoveInsret_werple.mira.net.au http://home.mira.net/~reynella/
KLM
<mightym...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>Indeed. I don't see how anyone can make such an outrageous claim
>considering statistics showing cancer survival rates are improving. I
>suspect that our fine poster finds it "one of the most balanced and
>informative articles" that poster has ever read because it fits with their
>preconceptions. Beyond that, why would anyone read Fortune magazine for
>articles about cancer?
Read it first then comment. The author survived Hodgkins disease
himself.
The value of the article is not its science or clinical content. Its
value is in the author's insight, in plain English everyone should be
able to understand, of what the Cancer establishment had accomplished
for all the years of effort and billions of dollars put into "The War
on Cancer." A timeline on the earlier cancer "breakthroughs" and
their subsequent disappointments should enable you to develop a
balanced view on the current hype on cancer treatments.
The article quotes many top clinical researchers who are of the
opinion that the present drug and developmental model is
dysfunctional. They advocate that the disease should be attacked as a
whole organism, not continue to lavishly fund the barely noticible
incremental improvements that is the norm today.
If nothing else, the article will wise you up to the fact that the
latest big dollar drugs are no better than standard drug treatments
that had been around for 30 years and cost a lot, lot less.
rich hammett
> <mightym...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>Indeed. I don't see how anyone can make such an outrageous claim
>>considering statistics showing cancer survival rates are improving. I
>>suspect that our fine poster finds it "one of the most balanced and
>>informative articles" that poster has ever read because it fits with their
>>preconceptions. Beyond that, why would anyone read Fortune magazine for
>>articles about cancer?
> Read it first then comment.
I (and AC) were commenting on YOUR comment, not the content
of the article, except as that was reflected in your comment.
> The author survived Hodgkins disease
> himself.
> The value of the article is not its science or clinical content. Its
> value is in the author's insight, in plain English everyone should be
> able to understand, of what the Cancer establishment had accomplished
> for all the years of effort and billions of dollars put into "The War
> on Cancer." A timeline on the earlier cancer "breakthroughs" and
> their subsequent disappointments should enable you to develop a
> balanced view on the current hype on cancer treatments.
Your statements in your original post were just plain wrong. And,
I suspect that any article that would support such statements would
be, at best, misleading. "Cancer" is a lot of different diseases,
and we ahve made great strides in understanding the causes of many
of them, in preventing many of them, and in treating and/or curing
many of them.
> The article quotes many top clinical researchers who are of the
> opinion that the present drug and developmental model is
> dysfunctional.
It's possible it could be improved, it IS easy to list faults in
it. And yet, it's the most successful ever devised.
> They advocate that the disease should be attacked as a
> whole organism, not continue to lavishly fund the barely noticible
> incremental improvements that is the norm today.
Sorry, that "whole organism" just set off my BS detector. Could
you be more specific?
> If nothing else, the article will wise you up to the fact that the
> latest big dollar drugs are no better than standard drug treatments
> that had been around for 30 years and cost a lot, lot less.
Fortunately, that is completely untrue. My mother-in-law
survived for a decade with an aggressive breast cancer that
was apparently completely put into remission only by powerful,
new drugs. However, her body had difficulties with the drugs,
so she couldn't have used ANY chemo, without other extremely new
drugs that helped her tolerate it.
You aren't advocating excessively diluted solutions of some
tumor-causing chemical or sugar pills as a cure, are you?
KLM
<bubba...@warmmail.com> wrote:
>
>You aren't advocating excessively diluted solutions of some
>tumor-causing chemical or sugar pills as a cure, are you?
>
Where did you get that Idea? I advocated nothing at all except refer
to people interested in the subject (cancer), to read a respected
business magazine and get a broader picture. If you have an issue
with what is reported there take it to the publishers an you will get
a much more satisfying response. Their reputation as a purveyor of
knowledge, accruacy and truth is at stake.
I get the impression that many of you have bankrupted yourselves with
costly cancer treatments that are at best marginal in their efficacy.
I would believe just as many of you harbor these suspicions but dare
not or have no means of questioning the medical establishment. Well
one of the discussion items in the FORTUNE article gives an idea where
to look. That's all.
AC
KLM <klm...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 23 Mar 2004 16:49:10 +0000 (UTC), rich hammett
><bubba...@warmmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>
>>You aren't advocating excessively diluted solutions of some
>>tumor-causing chemical or sugar pills as a cure, are you?
>>
>
> Where did you get that Idea? I advocated nothing at all except refer
> to people interested in the subject (cancer), to read a respected
> business magazine and get a broader picture. If you have an issue
> with what is reported there take it to the publishers an you will get
> a much more satisfying response. Their reputation as a purveyor of
> knowledge, accruacy and truth is at stake.
Why on earth would I take Fortune magazine as being any authority on
medicine? It's rather like taking National Geographic as some sort of
scientific authority? Can you give me any reason why I should believe a
magazine that is not, nor does it claim to be, a medical journal? Other
than, of course, the fact that it agrees with your preconceptions.
>
> I get the impression that many of you have bankrupted yourselves with
> costly cancer treatments that are at best marginal in their efficacy.
> I would believe just as many of you harbor these suspicions but dare
> not or have no means of questioning the medical establishment.
This sentence indicates kookery right around the corner. This is the new
ager's standard line for hawking bullshit solutions. I hope you are
different, but I wonder.
> Well
> one of the discussion items in the FORTUNE article gives an idea where
> to look. That's all.
And where, pray tell, does it tell us to look?
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
KLM
<mightym...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>Why on earth would I take Fortune magazine as being any authority on
>medicine? It's rather like taking National Geographic as some sort of
>scientific authority? Can you give me any reason why I should believe a
>magazine that is not, nor does it claim to be, a medical journal? Other
>than, of course, the fact that it agrees with your preconceptions.
>
Okay have it your way. I am not trying to solicit magazine
subscriptions or sell medications or anything. I don't spend anything
on medications or on nutritional supplements either. Never needed to.
For Information I do trust the Nat Geographic's roundup on
technologies and other subjects. The NG is one magazine that checks
and doublechecks their articles before publication because they know
their volumes will be kept by many people for ages and read and
reread. Nothing has come back to haunt them yet except for one
article on a fossil bird from China that was a composite of a bird and
a small dinosaur. They published a full investigation on their
mistake soon after.
As for FORTUNE they are one of the better magazines out of the States.
=But take you pick on what you want to read and trust.
AC
KLM <klm...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> As for FORTUNE they are one of the better magazines out of the States.
>=But take you pick on what you want to read and trust.
I won't take even the finest business magazine as an authority on medicine.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
Lilith
Baloney. Let me give you a few clues, here.
First off, cancer is a host of diseases, not just one disease.
Suggesting a universal cure for cancer is like trying to suggest a
universal cure for "sick".
Second, not only are we aware of the different cancers, but we are
aware of the different causes of those same cancers; for instance, one
protein whose disregulation may cause leukemia can have one of a
handful of different mutations that can cause the same effect
(dysregulation), so treating that one protein mutation directly is
difficult...one drug that may block one mutation will not block all.
Third, we don't know all causes of cancer yet, because there are so
darn many. But we DO know the cause of several cancers. Mutation and
cell growth control dysregulation. Again, it's like talking about
"knowing the cause of sick". There is no one cause. There's a host of
causes. We're aware of several already; we'll find out more as time
goes on. Cancer is not a result of a single cause, but multiple
causes.
Last, there are several pending cancer drugs in development. At least
one I know of (Gleevec) is already approved for CML and
gastrointestinal stromal tumors. It's one of those lovely drugs that
can directly target a particular mutation type (from what I remember)
in the KIT receptor. There never will be a single pill cure for all
cancers. The next big thing may be biotherapy with antibody cocktails,
built specifically for certain cancer types.
Louann Miller
wrote:
>Third, we don't know all causes of cancer yet, because there are so
>darn many. But we DO know the cause of several cancers. Mutation and
>cell growth control dysregulation. Again, it's like talking about
>"knowing the cause of sick". There is no one cause. There's a host of
>causes. We're aware of several already; we'll find out more as time
>goes on. Cancer is not a result of a single cause, but multiple
>causes.
>
>Last, there are several pending cancer drugs in development.
There are pretty good techniques for some cancers already up and
running, too. A family member has been successfully treated, several
years apart, for Hodgkin's Lymphoma and prostate cancer and looks
likely to live out his normal lifespan.
A co-worker at my previous job, by contrast, never went to doctors.
She went from vague generalized pain to acute pain to dead of breast
cancer spread to the bone between Thanksgiving and Christmas one year.
rich hammett
> <bubba...@warmmail.com> wrote:
>>You aren't advocating excessively diluted solutions of some
>>tumor-causing chemical or sugar pills as a cure, are you?
> Where did you get that Idea? I advocated nothing at all except refer
> to people interested in the subject (cancer), to read a respected
> business magazine and get a broader picture. If you have an issue
> with what is reported there take it to the publishers an you will get
> a much more satisfying response. Their reputation as a purveyor of
> knowledge, accruacy and truth is at stake.
> I get the impression that many of you have bankrupted yourselves with
> costly cancer treatments that are at best marginal in their efficacy.
And when marginal is the best you can get, do you refuse it?
> I would believe just as many of you harbor these suspicions but dare
> not or have no means of questioning the medical establishment. Well
> one of the discussion items in the FORTUNE article gives an idea where
> to look. That's all.
Where does it say? Uri Geller? Are you a positive advocate for
anything?
rich hammett
I have an aunt who is in the last stage of that same process
right now.
AC
rich hammett <bubba...@warmmail.com> wrote:
> In talk.origins Louann Miller <loua...@yahoo.net> sanoi, hitaasti kuin hämähäkki:
>> On Wed, 24 Mar 2004 12:55:07 +0000 (UTC), lil...@umich.edu (Lilith)
>> wrote:
>
>>>Third, we don't know all causes of cancer yet, because there are so
>>>darn many. But we DO know the cause of several cancers. Mutation and
>>>cell growth control dysregulation. Again, it's like talking about
>>>"knowing the cause of sick". There is no one cause. There's a host of
>>>causes. We're aware of several already; we'll find out more as time
>>>goes on. Cancer is not a result of a single cause, but multiple
>>>causes.
>>>
>>>Last, there are several pending cancer drugs in development.
>
>> There are pretty good techniques for some cancers already up and
>> running, too. A family member has been successfully treated, several
>> years apart, for Hodgkin's Lymphoma and prostate cancer and looks
>> likely to live out his normal lifespan.
>
>> A co-worker at my previous job, by contrast, never went to doctors.
>> She went from vague generalized pain to acute pain to dead of breast
>> cancer spread to the bone between Thanksgiving and Christmas one year.
>
> I have an aunt who is in the last stage of that same process
> right now.
I lost a cousin just over a year ago to a bowel cancer that spread to his
lungs. In the spring of 2002 he was lifting some fairly heavy boxes at work
when he started experiencing intense pain. Due to long-standing back
problems, no one even thought about cancer, and it wasn't until summer that
he was diagnosed. They operated immediately, and while the prognosis seemed
good at first, by autumn he was spiraling downhill very rapidly. He died in
December, leaving behind a 40 year old wife, a 19 year old son and an eleven
year old daughter. He was just 41. It was very sad.
The fact remains that we're not going to cure every cancer, but people are
living longer, and some cancers have proven themselves amenable to
treatments. That's not to say every prostate patient is going to live, but
the odds are better than they were, and it looks as if they will get better
as time goes on.
It doesn't help that the general populace seems to consider Suzanne Somers
as much an authority on cancer as the American Cancer Society, and seem
willing to give credence to quacks like Dr. di Bella.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
R.Schenck
snip
> ... cancer is a host of diseases, not just one disease.
> Suggesting a universal cure for cancer is like trying to suggest a
> universal cure for "sick".
Yes, and until quiters like you get with the program we're never going to
have a cure for sick. Over the generations, many people have sufffered
sick. Oftimes, people have even died from sick. But one glorious day, we
will find a cure for sick.
snip
Kenny Leong
> In article <29154d7c.04031...@posting.google.com>,
> kenny_t...@yahoo.com says...
> > BDK <kingrat...@buckeye-express.com> wrote in message news:<MPG.1abfcb305...@news.buckeye-express.com>...
> > > In article <bjeb50d41jd1umd3k...@4ax.com>, a...@if.com
> > > says...
> > > > On Mon, 15 Mar 2004 11:49:48 +0000 (UTC), maf...@yahoo.com (maff)
> > > > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > >More than 4,500 years ago, the legendary Chinese ruler and cultural
> > > > >hero Huang-di - the "Yellow Emperor" - is said to have created the
> > > >
> > > > I thought they were all yellow? :-P *duck*
> > > >
> > > > >basic elements of one of the greatest civilisations on Earth. In
> > > > >addition to founding the philosophy of Taoism, Huang-di is credited
> > > > >with the invention of writing, the discovery of the pottery wheel, the
> > > > >breeding of silkworms and the creation of acupuncture.
> > > >
> > > > Regardless, it has at least that 20% placebo effect... personally I'd
> > > > prefer something less frightening and painful though.
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> > > My last dog had some treatments for his arthritis, and it does work, I
> > > don't think any placebo effect would happen with him. A couple of hours
> > > after he had the first one, he suddenly was moving better than he had
> > > for some time. We continued with them and he kept walking well and
> > > seemed much more comfortable than he was. He started eating better
> > > almost immediately and regained the weight he had lost over the previous
> > > few months and ended up, at the end, at 73 pounds, about what he always
> > > weighed.
> > >
> > > As far as pain of the treatment itself, he used to start nodding off in
> > > the middle of them, right after the needles went in. It really relaxed
> > > him, so pain isn't a factor.. The fright, well that's your deal.
> > >
> > > BDK
> >
> >
> > Isn't acupuncture related to stimulating nerve points or something
> > like that? I'm guessing that if folks develop something over a quite a
> > long period of time and the method appears to give obvious results for
> > lots of people, then it's probably a useful method - provided it
> > doesn't make us get in a worse condition than what we started with.
> >
> > Pretty cool how it worked for your dog as well.
> >
> > I know that with chinese herbal medicine, they also developed that for
> > many years. It is effective for some kinds of ailments, but of course,
> > it can't cure every ailment...like cancer. So it's got it's advantages
> > and it's limitations, just like western medicine. Each have their
> > advantages and disadvantages.
> >
> > Kenny L.
> >
> >
>
> I guess that nerve stimulation, or maybe blocking might be a better way
> to think about it. The way it seemed to almost knock my dog out was
> pretty impressive. He twitched pretty good as the needles were inserted,
> but he didn't do anymore than just turn around and look at the vet's
> hands. After the first few times, his tail wagged until about half the
> needles were in, then he would get this odd look on his face, and then
> his eyelids would start drooping. I guess it either gave him some kind
> of buzz, or it cut the pain out. He slept like a rock the night after
> the treatments. He was never a good sleeper, even when he was old, but I
> could walk in and out of the room without waking him.
>
> One of my present dogs sleeps like this all the time. It worried me for
> a while, I was pretty convinced something was wrong with him. He yawns
> all the time, and can go to sleep and right into dreaming in a couple of
> minutes. I spent a lot of money getting tests done. The best thing the
> vets could come up with is "He's a sleeper, and doesn't waste energy".
> This is a perfect description. He is the most laid back dog I have ever
> seen and friends didn't really believe me when I told them what a psycho
> he is at times. Ballistic doesn't come close to describing him when he
> goes off. One of my friend's was over and the dog spent most of his time
> sleeping and nagging us for head scratches. Then he left and came back,
> running on his back legs only, (Think Raptor from Jurassic Park) and
> body slammed my other dog into the couch, and spent the next 20 minutes
> doing the orbit thing around the house at 40 MPH, and then mauling sis,
> who just doesn't get it.
>
> BDK
Pretty interesting dogs you got there hehehe. Different than a lot of
ones I come across, but that's what makes it interesting. Anyhow...a
weird thing was my best friend had this dark coloured chihuahua type
dog that had a head that looked like a flying fox. Anyhow, I knew that
dog for more than 7 years, and it never let me even pat it for some
reason. When I tried to be friendly with it, it would do start
growling and then try biting its own tail. It's a strange case because
I've never come across another dog that didn't like me before, and I
knew this one for years. But then again, it would let most other folks
touch it either. The weird case is that it would let one of these
other friends touch it and pat it.
I'm not that keen on cats. But I had a weird cat that was actually
given to me by an italian family and I had to look after it from then
on, so it (she) became my cat. One afternoon, MANY years ago now, when
I was in high school...I discovered this ridiculous thing about the
cat. I was just practising loud whistling and the cat just appeared
and walked up to me. I thought it was weird because my cat never walks
up to anybody unless you try to do the 'pss ..pss ...pss ..and rub
thumb over the fingers sound, to get the cat's attention'. I wasn't
sure whether this weird thing was due to the whistling, and by
accident, I had found that whistling above a certain pitch would cause
that cat to walk up to you - unconditionally, like the pied piper
effect. The cat could be 50 metres away and completely out of sight,
and the trick would still work. The amazing thing was that it could
easily be demonstrated to my friends, because it didn't matter who it
was that was whistling ... as long as it was somebody that the cat
knew was no threat to it. Back then, we didn't have video
cameras...they were too expensive, so I never got video records of it.
But then again I didn't really want to publicise this too much because
it was truly incredible, and nobody would believe you if you told them
about it. But I didn't want to make it well known in case the damn
scientists or whatever decided to come and take my cat away for
studies or tests. So it was better to keep it low profile except among
my friends. The cat wasn't trained to do such a weird thing.
Actually...the only time the cat wouldn't do this trick was when it
was eating. I guess when the cat is hungry, nothing's going to stop it
from having dinner hehehe. Unfortunately, when we were moving houses,
my cat was being looked after by my uncle temporarily, and it got
lost. I was told by my cousins that kids were playing with air guns
that week my cat disappeared, and it was likely that she was killed by
these bastards. There's no hell of course. But if there was, I'd see
those god damn sons of ******* in hell and they'd understand what real
punishment is.
Kenny L.
Matt Silberstein
<bubba...@warmmail.com>:
>In talk.origins Louann Miller <loua...@yahoo.net> sanoi, hitaasti kuin hämähäkki:
>> On Wed, 24 Mar 2004 12:55:07 +0000 (UTC), lil...@umich.edu (Lilith)
>> wrote:
>
>>>Third, we don't know all causes of cancer yet, because there are so
>>>darn many. But we DO know the cause of several cancers. Mutation and
>>>cell growth control dysregulation. Again, it's like talking about
>>>"knowing the cause of sick". There is no one cause. There's a host of
>>>causes. We're aware of several already; we'll find out more as time
>>>goes on. Cancer is not a result of a single cause, but multiple
>>>causes.
>>>
>>>Last, there are several pending cancer drugs in development.
>
>> There are pretty good techniques for some cancers already up and
>> running, too. A family member has been successfully treated, several
>> years apart, for Hodgkin's Lymphoma and prostate cancer and looks
>> likely to live out his normal lifespan.
>
>> A co-worker at my previous job, by contrast, never went to doctors.
>> She went from vague generalized pain to acute pain to dead of breast
>> cancer spread to the bone between Thanksgiving and Christmas one year.
>
>I have an aunt who is in the last stage of that same process
>right now.
I had an aunt who did that several years ago. And a spouse on
Tamoxifen right now to avoid that result.
That said, the "War on Cancer" has not been a particular success.
Yes, we have had made great strides dealing with cancer, but lots
(most?) of them did not come from the "War". That style of
directed research has not worked all that well.
Lilith
I work with a cancer research group. The research on cancer is still
"just starting", really, and there are more cancer treatment drugs out
there than you may be aware of that are going to hit the market within
the next decade. They were all a result of directed research.
Since drugs have about a decade between Discovery and Clinical, I'd
say that it's premature still to declare directed cancer research a
failure. We didn't even have a completely finished human genome
sequence until now. The human genome project is critical for cancer
research.
maff
> Acupuncture: Is it an ancient art or a pointless exercise?
> http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health/story.jsp?story=501303
>
> It has been practised for 4,500 years and thousands of patients swear
> by it. Does acupuncture really work?
>
> By Steve Connor and Jeremy Laurance
> 15 March 2004
>
>
> More than 4,500 years ago, the legendary Chinese ruler and cultural
> hero Huang-di - the "Yellow Emperor" - is said to have created the
> addition to founding the philosophy of Taoism, Huang-di is credited
> with the invention of writing, the discovery of the pottery wheel, the
> breeding of silkworms and the creation of acupuncture.
Not just a bunch of plant extracts
http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13026,1176808,00.html
Traditional Chinese medicine is largely shunned by western doctors.
Not for much longer, reports Alok Jha
Thursday March 25, 2004
The Guardian
Traditional medicine gets a bad press. Labelled as a collection of
last-resort cures favoured by quacks that often do more harm than
good, it has long occupied the backwaters of what Westerners view as
modern medicine.
Away with all pests ... ; an English surgeon in People's China
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0600100197/
by Joshua S. Horn
Joshua Horn
http://groups.google.com/groups?as_q=Joshua%20Horn&safe=images&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&lr=&num=100&hl=en
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Joshua+Horn&sa=N&tab=gw
http://news.google.com/news?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&cat=&q=Joshua+Horn&sa=N&tab=dn
Joshua S. Horn
http://groups.google.com/groups?as_epq=Joshua%20S.%20Horn&safe=images&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&lr=&num=100&hl=en
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=+%22Joshua+S.+Horn%22&sa=N&tab=gw
barefoot doctor OR doctors
http://groups.google.com/groups?as_q=barefoot&as_oq=doctor%20doctors&safe=images&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&lr=&num=100&hl=en
>
> Acupuncture
> http://news.google.com/news?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Acupuncture&sa=N&tab=gn
>
> http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&tab=gn&q=Acupuncture&sa=N&tab=nw
>
> http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Acupuncture&sa=N&tab=wd&cat=gwd%2FTop
>
> http://groups.google.com/groups?as_q=Acupuncture&safe=images&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&as_scoring=d&lr=&num=100&hl=en
>
> Is the wakening giant a monster?
> http://tinyurl.com/iws6
>
> A Blueprint for the Future
> http://tinyurl.com/9vga
Matt Silberstein
(Lilith):
[snip]
>I work with a cancer research group. The research on cancer is still
>"just starting", really, and there are more cancer treatment drugs out
>there than you may be aware of that are going to hit the market within
>the next decade. They were all a result of directed research.
>
>Since drugs have about a decade between Discovery and Clinical, I'd
>say that it's premature still to declare directed cancer research a
>failure. We didn't even have a completely finished human genome
>sequence until now. The human genome project is critical for cancer
>research.
How much of the Human Genome Project was funded as part of the
War on Cancer? Little to none, I suspect.
Lilith
> In talk.origins I read this message from lil...@umich.edu
> (Lilith):
>
> [snip]
>
> >I work with a cancer research group. The research on cancer is still
> >"just starting", really, and there are more cancer treatment drugs out
> >there than you may be aware of that are going to hit the market within
> >the next decade. They were all a result of directed research.
> >
> >Since drugs have about a decade between Discovery and Clinical, I'd
> >say that it's premature still to declare directed cancer research a
> >failure. We didn't even have a completely finished human genome
> >sequence until now. The human genome project is critical for cancer
> >research.
>
> How much of the Human Genome Project was funded as part of the
> War on Cancer? Little to none, I suspect.
Well, my point didn't have to do with the HGP being funded by the War
on Cancer. My point was that the HGP and the associated increase in
biotechnology is necessary to ramp up the speed in cancer research.
Most of this new biotech is speeding up cancer research with
high-throughput, large-scale experiments that would have once took
years in the old way of doing things, but which now scale down into
weeks, or often days. The biology is no less complicated, but we now
have more information and the potential for many new data points for
each experiment we do. More and accelerated information with proper
processing and consideration means a better chance at success in my
experience.
Matt Silberstein
(Lilith):
>Matt Silberstein <matts...@ix.netcom.nospamcom> wrote in message news:<n6k560dckh4g8hbtt...@4ax.com>...
>> In talk.origins I read this message from lil...@umich.edu
>> (Lilith):
>>
>> [snip]
>>
>> >I work with a cancer research group. The research on cancer is still
>> >"just starting", really, and there are more cancer treatment drugs out
>> >there than you may be aware of that are going to hit the market within
>> >the next decade. They were all a result of directed research.
>> >
>> >Since drugs have about a decade between Discovery and Clinical, I'd
>> >say that it's premature still to declare directed cancer research a
>> >failure. We didn't even have a completely finished human genome
>> >sequence until now. The human genome project is critical for cancer
>> >research.
>>
>> How much of the Human Genome Project was funded as part of the
>> War on Cancer? Little to none, I suspect.
>
>Well, my point didn't have to do with the HGP being funded by the War
>on Cancer. My point was that the HGP and the associated increase in
>biotechnology is necessary to ramp up the speed in cancer research.
Then we are talking past each other. The point I think the
original poster drew from, one that I have read in several "real"
places, is that the massive government "War on Cancer", has been
unsuccessful. Not that we have not made strides against cancer,
but that the government program was not a success. In fact, the
point several people have made, that cancer is many different
diseases with different causes and such, was one of the things
overlooked in the beginning on of the WoC. They were looking for
a magic bullet. That research from outside the WoC help us
understand and deal with cancer does not justify the WoC.
>Most of this new biotech is speeding up cancer research with
>high-throughput, large-scale experiments that would have once took
>years in the old way of doing things, but which now scale down into
>weeks, or often days. The biology is no less complicated, but we now
>have more information and the potential for many new data points for
>each experiment we do. More and accelerated information with proper
>processing and consideration means a better chance at success in my
>experience.
Yes, but asking all of the researchers in America to concentrate
on cancer may not be the most efficient method of dealing with
cancer.