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How to kill millions with alternative medicine - 4/11/2009 1:47:36 PM

DomKen

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http://www.badscience.net/2009/04/matthias-rath-steal-this-chapter/

And people ask me why I don't like woo.

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RE: How to kill millions with alternative medicine - 4/11/2009 2:08:23 PM

slaveboyforyou

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I've never heard of the guy, but he sounds like every other quack I've ever met or heard about. It amazes me that there are people that actually follow the advice of folks like this. It doesn't surprise me, but it amazes me. I guess some people are so desperate that they will believe anything.

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RE: How to kill millions with alternative medicine - 4/11/2009 3:04:19 PM

MrRodgers

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I am equally confident that AIDS will never have a vaccine. There is no continuing profits in it. AIDS will be forever...treated.

A friend years ago, went to an 'investor' meeting where there were two Japanese doctors who had spent 7 yrs in Africa prefecting what they developed as a cure to cycle-cell disease. (anemia) They were obvioulsy looking for investor dollars to take it to further testing.

A local doctor took my friend aside and told him "I just bought a new Mercedes and have a kid entering college, so I don't want to hear anything about ANY cure for sickle-cell desease."

Gee...I wonder why ? Isn't capitalism great ? Medicine in this country isn't about medicine...it's about money. Either you can afford to live or you live on...on charity of others.

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RE: How to kill millions with alternative medicine - 4/11/2009 3:48:45 PM

DomKen

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More conspiracy woo. Here's a blog by a grad student actively working on the HIV vax:
http://scienceblogs.com/erv/

Retroviral vaccines are complicated affairs even when the virus doesn't infect and destroy the very cells you want to stimulate to produce effective antibodies. With HIV the difficulties are greatly magnified.

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RE: How to kill millions with alternative medicine - 4/11/2009 7:23:44 PM

Vendaval

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A very important story. Thank you for sharing, Dom Ken.

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RE: How to kill millions with alternative medicine - 4/11/2009 7:30:17 PM

thornhappy

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Here's another site that reviews broadcasts and publications for accuracy and good statistics: http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/

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RE: How to kill millions with alternative medicine - 4/11/2009 7:53:01 PM

MichiganHeadmast

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I'm disappointed. I read the whole article and still don't know how to kill anyone with alternative medicine, let alone millions.

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RE: How to kill millions with alternative medicine - 4/12/2009 1:15:20 AM

awmslave

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Is this post an advertisement for the book "Bad Science"?

USA hospitals for accidental death: 93,591 per year, 7,799 per month, 1,799 per week, 256 per day, 10 per hour
Add here other misdiagnoses etc. and you see deadly effects of conventional medicine as well.

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RE: How to kill millions with alternative medicine - 4/12/2009 1:18:30 AM

hlen5

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MichiganHeadmaster,

Are you serious?

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RE: How to kill millions with alternative medicine - 4/12/2009 6:49:00 AM

MarsBonfire

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If these stories about independant doctors finding cures and treatments for various dieseases were true... why didn't the researchers who came up with the breakthroughs take their findings and their teams to countries where they could release it to the world? I mean, winning a Nobel can go to anyone from anywhere... For that matter, what smaller pharmacutical company wouldn't LOVE to kick it's huge competition in the nuts by announcing IT had the cure to sickle-cell, and to expose the larger companies' conspiracy to keep such drugs off the market? (Look at what happened when luddite Bush banned stem cell research... the best and brightest in the feild moved overseas... so not other countries have gotten the lead in this research.)

Don't the doctors and researchers think they could interest ANYONE in manufacturing a drug that cures a major diesease? That there wouldn't be a profit in undercutting the competition?

Yeah, these sorts of stories sound wonderful, and they feed everyone's cinical mood... but when you start looking more closely at them, they fall apart like Glen Beck being frightened for his country.

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RE: How to kill millions with alternative medicine - 4/12/2009 7:58:09 AM

Louve00

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I have such mixed feelings about this topic. Admittedly, not so much about the treatment of AIDS, but about alternative medicine. Alternative medicine can be a good thing, if you put some real research into it. (and I don't speak of opinionated articles you find on the internet, but actual research from accepted and accredited organizations and people.)

I believe the best way to get anything beneficial out of medicine is to look at it from a traditional, alternative/natural, and a scientific standpoint. When my husband was diagnosed with lung cancer. Of course, he went through radiation and chemotherapy...and eventually, when the tumor shrunk enough, it was removed surgically. I had done my research. I learned through several sources that cancer is a tenacious disease that, when attacked, works in a way to preserve itself. For example. Cutting cancer out of the body triggers a chemical response to the cancer cells that make the cancer travel to other parts of the body, and they lie in waiting. They wait for the body to become compromised, then take over. What can compromise the body? An inadequate immune system, for one. Not to mention, cancer loves sugar and loves to thrive in oxygen depleted bodies. So...eating the right way and supplementing with antioxidants to improve or keep the integrity of your immune system intact is important for a recovering cancer patients. Not doing totally away with traditional medicine. But knowing how supplementation and alternative medicine works, using it in combination with traditional medicine, based on what you learn scientifically about your body, your sickness, and you.

Can you cure an AIDS stricken body with supplementation alone? I doubt it. But can you treat it traditionally and strengthen (improve) that patients chances of surviving after treatment with supplementation? I don't know, but if I had AIDS, or I knew someone else with AIDS, I would definately investigate which supplements would be beneficial, why, use scientific data to back it up, and then make my decision.

To dismiss any one of the three...traditional, alternative/natural/ or scientific medicine is short-changing yourself, in my opinion. My husband will be in his fourth year of remission come this Sept. Every test he's ever taken since his remission has been perfectly normal. The survival rate for lung cancer is like...14%-17%. He will be declared a survivor next Sept. I attribute it to traditional medicine, knowing how to supplement to compliment traditional medicince....and the science behind it all to back it up.

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RE: How to kill millions with alternative medicine - 4/12/2009 8:14:50 AM

Louve00

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And just for the record, I wouldn't trust a thing the FDA said about anything. For one, any vitamin they have approved, they have set the minimum requirements way too low to benefit you. Of course you're going to find studies that say vitamins don't help if you don't take the proper dose. If you have a headache and you take a half an asprin, and the headache doesn't go away...is the asprin ineffective? or is the dose ineffective? And a huge, big, screaming off the top of my lungs YES, about pharmaceutical companies swaying the judgement of the FDA. Back in the 80's, when we were first finding that aspirin could benefit your heart, the FDA literally made it illegal to say aspirin can be beneficial to your heart because the drug companies paid them not be make that information public. In fact, the FDA has kept from the general public ALOT of information that pharmaceutical companies don't want Americans to know about.

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RE: How to kill millions with alternative medicine - 4/12/2009 8:54:25 AM

DomKen

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There's plenty wrong with the rest of this post but I'm going to point out the worst woo.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Louve00
I had done my research. I learned through several sources that cancer is a tenacious disease that, when attacked, works in a way to preserve itself. For example. Cutting cancer out of the body triggers a chemical response to the cancer cells that make the cancer travel to other parts of the body, and they lie in waiting. They wait for the body to become compromised, then take over. What can compromise the body? An inadequate immune system, for one. Not to mention, cancer loves sugar and loves to thrive in oxygen depleted bodies. So...eating the right way and supplementing with antioxidants to improve or keep the integrity of your immune system intact is important for a recovering cancer patients.

So you really did the research? from evidence based sources? Did you bother investigating the term antioxidant?

In a short and simple terms antioxidants interfere with oxidation of chemicals. Oxidation is of course the chemical combination of oxygen with some other compound. Oxidation is why we need to breathe oxygen. Our bodies do regulate the rates at which oxidation occurs but heavy dosing with antioxidants will not in any way, shape or form prevent oxygen depletion. As a matter of fact sufficient dosing of antioxidants would have exactly the effect of causing the body to be in oxygen debt since the oxygen metabloism would be greatly inhibited.

Luckily the body also has very effective measures for controling levels of antioxidants and massive doses of 'supplements' simply results in most of the supplement winding up in the urine. Anyone interested can of course find copious research on the subject proving that is exactly the result of mega doses of the various antioxidants.

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RE: How to kill millions with alternative medicine - 4/12/2009 8:57:30 AM

DomKen

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quote:

ORIGINAL: awmslave
Is this post an advertisement for the book "Bad Science"?

USA hospitals for accidental death: 93,591 per year, 7,799 per month, 1,799 per week, 256 per day, 10 per hour
Add here other misdiagnoses etc. and you see deadly effects of conventional medicine as well.

Notice this is an attempted comparison between the malignant behaviour of an alternative medicine charlatan and human error by health care workers. So on one side we have a man pitching a known useless product that will surely result in death and suffering and on the other we have people making mistakes. This doesn't exactly strike me as an apt comparison.

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RE: How to kill millions with alternative medicine - 4/12/2009 9:15:27 AM

Louve00

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Yep, I really did the research. From several sources (including the AMA, New England Journal of Medicine, and various accredited organizations. I am fully, completely aware of what an antioxidant is and what its purpose is, as well do I know what oxidation is and how it affects our bodies, causing all kinds of disease. Oxidation is a chemical process that occurs when we ingest things that affect the integrity of our cells. It, unlike oxygen, is not something thats good for a body. Oxygen doesn't cause oxidation, nor is it the reason we need to breathe it. Pollution causes oxidation. Oxygen is needed by every cell in our body, some more than others, to survive. Oxidation causes mutations in those cells, thru the chemical reaction of oxidation itself. And yes, just breathing in the (what we consider) clean air causes oxidation. Our bodies regulate oxidation "somewhat". Our bodies are capable of regulating and compensating for alot through a process called "homeostasis". But our bodies can't handle everything. That is where antioxidants come in. Antioxidants help strengthen the integrity of our cells. I am not, under any circumstance saying all antioxidants will prevent oxidation altogether, or at all. But it certainly gives you an advantage if you're taking them. And especially if you're taking the antioxidants your body needs, depending on the disease (or process) you are trying to help yourself in.

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RE: How to kill millions with alternative medicine - 4/12/2009 9:49:07 AM

DomKen

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Oxidation doesn't involve oxygen? rofl

Please stop and do some actual research. Just a google search.
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-oxidation.htm

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RE: How to kill millions with alternative medicine - 4/12/2009 9:57:26 AM

Louve00

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You misunderstand me, and this is why I have such mixed feelings about this subject. People who don't understand it will either discount it entirely...or go in the opposite direction and can hurt themselves.

Of course you need oxygen in order for oxidation to occur, but consider this. If you were living in a sterile environment, with no pollution or toxins to breathe in, oxidation would not occur...and as a result, would not be compromising the integrity of your cells. But we don't live in a sterile environment. Oxidation is caused from inhaling polution, ingesting certain foods...anything that, when chemically reacting with oxygen...oxidates and causes mutations to our cells.

I am in no way saying dose up to the gills with antioxidants. While it is great that some may be excreted in our urine, I would consider them less harmful, because potential overdose is not likely to happen. However some vitamins can do damage if you take too much. Like, too much A can damage your eyesight. Too much B6 can cause muscular problems. If you aren't researching what you take, you're liable to be the pharmaceuticals dream to "I told ya so."

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RE: How to kill millions with alternative medicine - 4/12/2009 10:20:36 AM

DomKen

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Louve00
Of course you need oxygen in order for oxidation to occur, but consider this. If you were living in a sterile environment, with no pollution or toxins to breathe in, oxidation would not occur...and as a result, would not be compromising the integrity of your cells. But we don't live in a sterile environment. Oxidation is caused from inhaling polution, ingesting certain foods...anything that, when chemically reacting with oxygen...oxidates and causes mutations to our cells.

See this is where you are completely wrong. A completely sterile human being in a completely sterile environment breathing oxygen will still be oxidizing compounds in in his body and the antioxidants naturally present from eating a normal diet supplemented bythe ones the body makes itself will still be controling the process. You've been sold woo.

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RE: How to kill millions with alternative medicine - 4/12/2009 10:28:42 AM

Louve00

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If you want to continue to believe antioxidants are the root of disease, go right away.

We'll have to agree to disagree on this one. If whoever this woo is said antioxidants are a good thing, I'd have to agree. But while I'm agreeing that antioxidants and supplements are, indeed, good for a body, it's not all a body needs to be healthy. That's not my argument. Being informed on supplementation, and how we can benefit from it, is my point here.

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RE: How to kill millions with alternative medicine - 4/12/2009 10:41:18 AM

samboct

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"Of course you need oxygen in order for oxidation to occur, but consider this. If you were living in a sterile environment, with no pollution or toxins to breathe in, oxidation would not occur...and as a result, would not be compromising the integrity of your cells. "

Good grief! I'd say the ignorance demonstrated here is a classic example of how charlatans like Rath thrive.

As someone who's taught chemistry to over a hundred students at a point in my life- you get an "F" in both knowledge of chemistry and biology.

No, I don't need to look this stuff up. Oxidation is the process in which the charge on an atom increases. For example- Cr(III) chromium with a charge of +3 --> Cr(VI) is an example of an oxidation process. If the reaction goes the other way, it's an example of a reduction. Based on this example, oxidation can certainly occur without oxygen, but oxygen is a common oxidant. Other oxidants include compounds such as sulfur, fluorine, chlorine etc. You can't have a reduction without a corresponding oxidation and vice versa.

Even when your body dies, redox (reduction/oxidation) processes occur. Redox processes are absolutely necessary for life- there is no energy transfer otherwise. If you're in a sterile room with no redox processes occurring- you're way beyond dead- you're a pile of ash.

From my perspective- if your "careful research" is based on such a flawed understanding of basic science, it certainly negates any firm conclusions that can be drawn regarding your claims for nutrition. Personally, I'm happy to hear that your husband has survived a difficult illness, and I'm sure that your support played a role in his treatment and recovery, but please don't take this as a sign that your ill considered nutritional "advice" played much part. In short- you're selling yourself short, and giving too much credence to snake oil (mega vitamin and antioxidants) salesmen.

To those folks pushing "alternative medicine"... What is often not mentioned in the scientific studies of herbal medicine is that the first problem is determining what exactly is in the stuff. If you think that a preparation of something like gingko baloba (sp?) has any type of consistency- guess again. The stuff is a mixture- and the ingredients change dramatically. The first problem with any of this stuff is figuring out what's in there that's actually useful. This is why a lot of scientists were against looking at "alternatives" in the first place- they're so badly characterized that there's a lot of expense in just figuring out what the crap is and if something is useful in it- what that compound really is.

Modern science has certainly derived most of its cures from natural compounds- one of the most potent anti cancer drugs, taxol is derived from a yew tree, so this claim that modern science ignores plant based remedies is utter hogwash and a bit infuriating. Most of the modern pharmacopeia is based on finding a natural compound whether it's from a plant, animal, fungus, bacteria, whatever, and seeing what it does in a pure form. This distinction between "alternatives" and modern pharmaceuticals is more a matter of purity and knowledge of active ingredients than anything else.

Sam (a Ph.D. chemist who agrees with Ken that Americans have the most expensive urine in the world.- although it sounds like the Brits might not be far behind.)

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