The Challenge to Natural Medicine Skeptics that has Gone Unanswered for Months

vernon wrote:
"PeterB" wrote in message
ps.com...

vernon wrote:
"pmoran" wrote in message
oups.com...

PeterB wrote:
Those favorable to the use of pharmaceutical drugs as an alternative
to
natural medicine are asked to provide the evidence that FDA-approved
drugs have been adequately tested for efficacy and safety. Please
provide a set of risk-adjusted outcomes for the following drugs. You
should state the number of deaths per 1000 (or fraction thereof)
associated with each drug, and whether any controlled studies exist to
show that the drug in question saves more lives than it takes (or, if
the drug is not marketed as a "cure" for a life threatening disease,
as
is typically the case, the justification for its use in management of
symptoms relative to such mortality and/or debility risk.) There are
35
drugs in the list. Let's see how you do.

1. Accutane
2. Avastin
3. Calcium Channel Blockers
5. Celebrex
6. Cordarone
7. Crestor
8. Depakote
9. Erythromycin
10. Fortovase
11. Gabitril
12. Geodon
13. Halcion
14. Hismanal
15. Invirase
16. Lamictal
17. Lamisil
18. Lovanox
19. Mellaril
20. Phenergan
21. Permax
22. Prempro
23. Premphase
24. Premarin
25. Propulsid
26. Ritodrine
27. Serentil
28. Tasmar
29. Topamax
30. Trovan
31. Viagra
32. Vioxx
33. Viramune
34. Warfarin
35. Zyvox

For evidence on the therapeutic value of applied and therapeutic
nutrition, see:

http://www.ajcn.org

There is a whole section in the latest publication of this journal on
the problem of side effects from vitamin and mineral supplements.


Hey, twit, the question wasn't about vitamins and minerals AND the
article
you suggest is REALLY stupid and anyone referencing in is even more
stupid.

Moran is notorious for knocking what he perceives as "the competition."
When asked to post the efficacy data on chemotherapy, he posted a
diatribe on the failures of various metabolic diets. These guys are so
predictable you can set your atomic clock by them.


I don't mean to say that many alternative methods are better qualified, but
very few alternative methods kill and maim with the accreditation and
non-expectation of a doctor prescribed prescription "DRUG".

Exactly. A metabolic diet isn't likely to trigger a remission or cure
in most cancers, but neither will standard oncology. At my dentist
yesterday, the hygienist was rattled when I told her to break up my
xrays between that visit and the next. I told her that studies had
shown some evidence of DNA damage resulting from so-called low-exposure
xrays, at which point she offered a story about her father, whose
prostate cancer, she said, was cured by radioactive seeds inserted into
his malignant tissues. I said I was happy to hear that her Father was
well, but that having my head radiated with gamma rays was not going to
clean my teeth.

With all of the shortcomings of many alternative theories it is still
absolutely SICK that the medical industry takes 30 to 50 years to recognize
and use a new methodology and THEN ONLY when SOLD to them.

I refer to that as the "commoditization of disease." We can have
useful drugs without it, but the trick is forcing politicians to divest
themselves of conflicted interests in the drug maker profits. It's
like separating a pair of horny cats.

vernon wrote:
"Mark Probert" wrote in message
news:fcerh.6834$q32.3764@trndny01...
vernon wrote:
"GMCarter" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 16 Jan 2007 09:10:54 -0700, "vernon" stillhere@anhere wrote:

"vernon" stillhere@anhere wrote in message
m...
P.S. note to idiots.

1. People come to the U.S. for medical help.
People go to India for medical help, particularly surgery.
***********************************
Super rich, tight people do. (Your freinds)
***********************************
and get second rate help

*************************************
Actually, Vern that is not the case. Moderately well-to-do people are
going there, and to Thailand, for surgery, since it is far cheaper than in
the US, and, so far, I have yet to see a horror story of botched surgery.
The facilities are spotless, and appear to be extremely comfortable, with
patient care primary.

This has been on several of the TV news magazines over the last few years.
Hospital building in India is BIG business.

Yes, I know about the T.V. coverage.

DIFFERENT AND VERY UNUSUAL IS NEWS.

"Moderately well to do"????

I suppose you personally know someone who has been there.

Nope.

I suppose that
you also know the real costs AND the tax write offs for a trip for medical
treatment.

Only if it exceeds 7% of your AGI, which is a very hard threshold to meet.

en wrote:

I'm just listening to Lance Armstrong reading his autobiography, and
was horrified to hear him telling how he had been diagnosed with
testicular cancer with metastases, and apparently was told that he was
uninsured. He checked and was changing jobs. His insurance with
Motorola had lapsed, and his new employer's insurer claimed his
illness was preexisting. So he had to have a fire sale of all his
posessions in order to pay his medical bills.

Tha just would not happen in Australia. you would have the best
available world class treatment no matter what.
So the richest country in the world, the land of the free can't manage
a simple thing like universal health cover?

The US has had universal healthcare for a very long time so don't
take the news so seriously. In the US there has been a county
hospital system for at least decades. If you are uninsured no
hospital can turn you away but once they stabilize you they can
transfer you to a nearby county hospital.

The care in county hospitals in the US is better than the care
available in most parts of the world, and depending on the county
better than what happens in Canada and the UK (I haven't read
reports from Australia). However the care in private hospitals in
the US is better than that so of course everyone wants to be able
go to private ones not county ones.

The publicity about uninsured people in the US is part hysteria
to pressure companies into voluntarily insuring more of their
staffs (a good thing), to get states to force companies to do so
(mixed as some companies would go under but the benefit
would probably outweigh the costs nationwide), to shift the
costs from the local counties to either the state or federal
levels without changing the overall spending level. Ah,
centralization of large budgets and the power that goes with it.
Funny how a big PR campaign would just happen to go with
that ...

Lance Armstrong could afford better than the local county
hospital taking a charity case, so he did afford it. There are
also rules about continuous insurance when changing jobs that
he did not heed. He knowingly took a risk when changing jobs
to let his coverage lapse between them. He had the option
of covering his payments during the gap - It's called COBRA
though I don't know what the acronym stands for. So he had
two choices not taken, and one of those choices was the
universal care.

On 17 Jan 2007 09:56:10 -0800, "Doug Freyburger"
wrote:

snip
The US has had universal healthcare for a very long time so don't
take the news so seriously. In the US there has been a county
hospital system for at least decades.

This is the most deranged distortion of reality I've seen since HIV
denialists started spewing their bull****.

In article ,
vernon stillhere@anhere wrote:

"vernon" stillhere@anhere wrote in message
om...


P.S. note to idiots.

1. People come to the U.S. for medical help.
2. No one goes without medical aid who needs it in the U.S.
3. MILLIONS come into the U.S. and get free medical aid.
4. NONE go to Australia, Mexico or Canada.
5. No major medical advancement has come from ANY country other than the
U.S. (As a matter of fact almost no technical advancement comes from other
than the U.S.)

Note to idiot vernon:

1) The first heart transplant was done in South Africa by Dr.
Christiaan Barnard.
2) Insulin was first discovered in Canada. (Banting, et al)

Just a couple of examples to show what a cretin you are.

-- David Wright :: alphabeta at prodigy.net
These are my opinions only, but they're almost always correct.
"If George Bush were my dad, I'd be drunk in public so often that
James Baker would have me killed." -- Bill Maher on the Bush twins

(David Wright) wrote:

In article ,
vernon stillhere@anhere wrote:

"vernon" stillhere@anhere wrote in message
. com...


P.S. note to idiots.

1. People come to the U.S. for medical help.
2. No one goes without medical aid who needs it in the U.S.
3. MILLIONS come into the U.S. and get free medical aid.
4. NONE go to Australia, Mexico or Canada.
5. No major medical advancement has come from ANY country other than the
U.S. (As a matter of fact almost no technical advancement comes from other
than the U.S.)

Note to idiot vernon:

1) The first heart transplant was done in South Africa by Dr.
Christiaan Barnard.
2) Insulin was first discovered in Canada. (Banting, et al)

Just a couple of examples to show what a cretin you are.

When I was in Melbourne recently saw a building named after Sir Howard
Florey, although I believe he was in England when he did the work that
got Alexander Fleming, Ernst Chain and him the Nobel Prize. Still, you
could hardly call "the discovery of penicillin and its curative effect
in various infectious diseases" a major medical advance, could you?

Just near by is a building that would have been very familiar to Sir
Frank Macfarlane Burnet, although he had to share his Nobel with an
Englishman, Peter Medaway. Again, I suppose that "discovery of
acquired immunological tolerance" wouldn't count as a "major medical
advancement" in VernWorld.

I apologise for being a bit parochial about this, but Australia does
fight a bit above its weight in some things.

Did I mention that the CSIRO has just won a court battle in the US
which supports its patents on the technology in all those
WiFi-equipped computers? Nothing to do with major medical advances, of
course, but according to Vernon neither would be things like the
"discovery of the bacterium Helicobacter pylori and its role in
gastritis and peptic ulcer disease" by Barry Marshall and Robin Warren
or Ian Frazer's creation of the HPV vaccine.
--
Peter Bowditch aa #2243
The Millenium Project http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles
Australian Council Against Health Fraud http://www.acahf.org.au
Australian Skeptics http://www.skeptics.com.au
To email me use my first name only at ratbags.com

In message , David Wright wrote:

In article ,
vernon stillhere@anhere wrote:

"vernon" stillhere@anhere wrote in message
. com...


P.S. note to idiots.

1. People come to the U.S. for medical help.
2. No one goes without medical aid who needs it in the U.S.
3. MILLIONS come into the U.S. and get free medical aid.
4. NONE go to Australia, Mexico or Canada.
5. No major medical advancement has come from ANY country other than the
U.S. (As a matter of fact almost no technical advancement comes from other
than the U.S.)

Note to idiot vernon:

1) The first heart transplant was done in South Africa by Dr.
Christiaan Barnard.
2) Insulin was first discovered in Canada. (Banting, et al)

Just a couple of examples to show what a cretin you are.

The last 20 Nobel Prizes for medicine
from http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/:

2006: two from USA
2005: two from Australia
2004: two from USA
2003: One USA, one Great Britain
2002: One USA, two Great Britain
2001: One USA, two Great Britain
2000: One Sweden, two USA
1999: One USA
1998: Three USA
1997: One USA
1996: One Australia, one Switzerland
1995: One Germany, two USA
1994: two from USA
1993: One USA, one Great Britain
1992: One USA, one Switzerland
1991: Two Germany
1990: two from USA
1989: two from USA
1988: Two USA, one Great Britain
1987: One Japan

--
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wrote:
Why those 35 among the thousands?

Why not? They happen to be the top revenue-generating drugs and should
be easy to find data for. Why not just admit you can't do it?

Because the implied strawman logic is a crock.

What implication? How do you evaluate the risk of a pharmaceutical
drug without knowing the frequency of dangerous side effects? If the
effects of these medications in real patients is not your measurement
of drug efficacy and safety, what is?

Because I'm not being
taken in by the fools errand you have created.

In other words, you have no idea what the risks of these drugs actually
is.

All were shown to do
exactly as claimed or they were not approved.

So you admit that a meaningful risk assessment is not applied. If I'm
wrong, where is the data published?

If they should in the
long term reduce mortality by their demonstrated effect thought
connected to their target disorder then fine.

You call that "evidence based medicine?" My, my, what a sad state of
affairs.

Thousands of drugs have
in the long term done this.

Done what exactly? And do feel free to provide a citation, otherwise,
it's just hand waiving.

Lower mortality is sought but is not
required because of the time involved of years to cover the lifetimes of
the population as a whole for many disorders.

What data do you have that any of these drugs is reducing disease at
the population level? Can you, or can you not, provide a citation
documenting your claim? If you cannot, then it is wholly unproven.

Research is done all the time after the passage of enough years for
large enough population to see if for example a blood pressure reducing
drug such as one of your examples translates to lower mortality.

Then produce the data. I am asking you to demonstrate that the risk of
side effects for a drug like Norvasc compare favorably to a reduction
in mortality risk. You can't do it, can you?

Others
such as vaccines don't require such time periods as do metabolic
disorder related drugs.

So vaccines are exempt from any requirement to demonstrate efficacy at
the population level using RCT studies that adjust for nutritional
status, disease history, immune function, or genetics? You suggest,
however, that such data might be available for prescription drugs.
Why, then, can you not produce it?

You are not the source of the list of
course.

I personally culled the list myself using a web source.

No drugs must show mortality reduction for fda approval, they
must show they are safe and effective for the claimed outcome which is
thought to relate in the long term to mortality.

I only asked you to provide mortality or morbidity INCIDENCE, however
you logically need to provide the mortality BENEFIT in order to
demonstrate the risk-reward profile for each drug. You have done
neither.

This often takes years
to establish.

Many drugs on the list provided have been on the market for years.
Choose the ones for which you have data.

The Calcium Channel Blockers are an example, blood
pressure reduction was demonstrated.

Can you correlate blood pressure reduction from the use of a channel
blocker to a mortality or longevity benefit? Can you provide
risk-adjusted outcomes to a patient who wants to know his absolute risk
from taking the drug, in terms of mortality or morbidity? If not, then
you have no grasp of what it means for a drug to "work."

Your question is a bit deceptive
in this regard, as also inclusion of drugs like viagra not related to
mortality, except for those who will "just die if they cann't get it
up". Use of "natural medicine" is but spin, naturally.

Bull****. I clearly stated that for any drug not marketed to treat a
life threatening illness (Viagra), you should provide the justification
for its use in management of symptoms against the medical risks.
You're just trying to weasel out of answering as you typically do.

In other words, you can't produce risk-adjusted outcomes for even one
drug in the list.

No, but it is irrelevant as above.

More BS. You can't respond credibly and your post proves it.

However the "alternative drugs" are greatly troubled in these areas
having an assumption of "usually safe" which doesn't always pan out in
the long term and is removed.

What is an "alternative drug?"

Effective and mortality reduction are not
required nor usually demonstrated in research, except as the golden
goose of marketing, naturally.

Give examples of such marketing in which a dietary supplement is
claimed to reduce mortality.

Which is why drugs are not "proven safe." What did you think was the
point of all this?

To create a tempest in a teapot and send folk on an empty fools errand
in diversion of the more important question of does the damn thing work
and is it safe as demonstrated by hard evidence. The answer we well too
often know for "alternative drugs" as no and for those meeting fda
thresholds yes.

The only thing you have demonstrated is that you're a fool. The hard
evidence is still just a figment of your imagination.

PeterB

What implication? How do you evaluate the risk of a pharmaceutical
drug without knowing the frequency of dangerous side effects? If the
effects of these medications in real patients is not your measurement
of drug efficacy and safety, what is?

Both are measured during approval trials. In the early ones first in
animals and then in humans adverse side effects are sought if any and
the frequency recorded by percent. If too high or dangerous the trial
is stopped.

In later testing the dose to show what produces the most effective
results if any is done and adverse side effects observations continue
for the few years the trials last.


For example, high blood pressure is considered a high risk factor for
other disorders and death. A proposed drug would have to show its risk
of adverse side effects if any was tolerable and that in fact it reduced
blood pressure if at all. Your original strawman question and fools
errand you set was to demand someone show that mortality was decreased
by use of some top selling drugs.

As I responded, reduction in blood pressure was demonstrated, only long
term observation will show if mortality was reduced for having reduced
blood pressure using the drug. During the few years of trials to show
it is safe and works no such reduction in mortality for such things as
long term blood pressure would be possible.


"Safe" and "effective" are established before leaving the lab, reduced
long term mortality can not be by definition.