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Originally Posted by rbohm
actually many of the natural science methods and remedies have been proven experimentally, but the problem is that these remedies cannot be patented and thus the pharmaceutical industry turns their back on these things, and pushes the FDA to do the same thing.
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Most alternative treatments are just a waste of money. Companies that market them are not required to show they do anything useful and nothing happens unless someone is actually harmed. Many herbal products do not even contain what the label says they do, and many contain substances not on the label, including prescription drugs. Very view have actually been demonstrated to be useful at all.
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Originally Posted by whogo
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Yep!
If you survived the infectious diseases, though, you might have a good chance at exceeding the average.
10 leading causes of death in 1850 and 2000 | Nonprofit update
Ten leading causes of death in 1850:
Tuberculosis
Dysentery/diarrhea
Cholera
Malaria
Typhoid Fever
Pneumonia
Diphtheria
Scarlet Fever
Meningitis
Whooping Cough
Note there are now vaccines for TB, typhoid, pneumonia, diphtheria, meningitis, and whooping cough. Cholera was controlled by improved water treatment and malaria by mosquito control.
In 1900:
Pneumonia
Tuberculosis
Diarrhea
Heart disease
Stroke
Liver disease
Accidents
Cancer
Normal aging
Diphtheria
2000:
Heart disease
Cancer
Stroke
Lung disease
Accidents
Diabetes
Pneumonia/Influenza
Alzheimer’s disease
Kidney disease
Blood poisoning
Funny how if you do not die of an infection you live long enough to get the conditions that happen as you get older.
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Originally Posted by mm4
And it was for three reasons only: OB-GYN, sanitation, nutrition.
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No, the biggest reason was prevention and treatment of infectious disease. Infection was one of the biggest dangers of childbirth, one of the big three, which included hemorrhage and toxemia, none of which were amenable to nutrition.
Sanitation did lead to a decrease in puerperal infection. Of course it was a physician, not an herbalist that showed that dirty hands and delivering babies are not a good combination. It was scientists that derived usable forms of ergot to control hemorrhage and scientists who developed treatment for toxemia.
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Originally Posted by emilybh
Who cares about the AVERAGE? The MEAN is what is important. Sure back then they didn't have incubators and a lot of babies died in childbirth that stay alive today. If they lived past age 5, chances are they lived into their 70s, 80s 90s or 100s and died healthy and disease free in their sleep!
Compare that to today where more babies lives are spared -- which raises the average -- but in middle age half of Americans are diagnosed with a chronic or degenerative disease and today people are so debilitated by their sixties or 70s there is a nursing home crisis. People waste away living a horrible quality of life in their sunset years today. It is a sad testimate to modern medicine.
Of course the statisticians know Americans are too dumb to know the difference between average and mean. They just take the mainstream media's word for everything and don't even suspect they might be lying and just trying to brainwash people into believing the idiotic mantra that "we are living longer healthier lives" today. What a croc that line is.
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Um, the mean
is the average. And most of the children who died had infectious diseases, which is the reason all those vaccines we give children were invented.
I would hardly describe someone who died as "healthy and disease free".
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Originally Posted by EinsteinsGhost
The beauty of science is that it will admit shortcomings and mistakes, and will move to improve/correct them. OTOH, the opposition claims "perfection" without any basis.
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So true. Medical school deans are fond of this quote:
"As the Dean of Harvard (Dr. Sydney Burwell) put it at a Harvard dinner which I was privileged to attend, "My students are dismayed when I say to them, 'Half of what you are taught as medical students will in 10 years have been shown to be wrong. And the trouble is, none of your teachers knows which half.' "
Therefore, while medicine acknowledges that new data will change recommendations - which is a strength, not a weakness - alternative medicine proponents still promote homeopathy, which physics tells us is a scam, and hawk herbs with no proven benefit at all.
The Purpose of Medical Education
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Originally Posted by GuyNTexas
For example, it was recently revealed how scientific studies have now shown that chemotherapy actually causes an acceleration of cancer growth, rather than serve as a cure.
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Children with acute lymphocytic leukemia now have a 90% survival rate thanks to chemo. Many other cancers are also being cured with chemo, including other blood cancers and testicular cancer.
You keep making this claim about chemo; I will keep challenging it. It's not true.
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Another revelation coming from insiders revealed how the FDA covered up data showing a causal link between vaccines and autism .... of course, the whistle blowers are attacked as quacks and the show marches on, along with an increased push for elimination of vaccination wavers. This is the exact opposite of the rational response, which should have been public demand for a full blown investigation into the manipulations being revealed.
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No cover up. Wakefield lied. Studies from all over the world have shown no link between autism and vaccines. There would be no way for the FDA to cover anything up.
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The reality is, there are hundreds of billions of dollars riding on continuing and expanding pharmaceutical based medicine whether or not it is effective or safe. Efficacy and safety are just consumer/patient concerns to be addressed as a continued selling point only, and not a scientific or medical concern. That serves no significant role in the course if modern medicine .... if a particular "treatment" masks a symptom, but causes further health issues, well, all the better, since another treatment can be offered for that. A win-win for the medical establishment ... for the patient, not so much.
No industry has become as corrupt as the medical industry, with their unprecedented mandates and product liability protections written into law by their bribe taking lackies in congress. No other industry enjoys such laws requiring public participation/purchase of their product, while also granting them immunity from the well established rules governing product liability that applies to every other business or product.
The fraud is so blatant ... it's impossible not to see
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.
If a drug is not safe it will eventually be found out. Rare problems often cannot be found in initial studies because it is impossible to do studies on millions of people. The cost would be unsustainable. If a drug is not effective, patients tell their doctors and doctors stop prescribing it.
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Originally Posted by cccdan
It's worse than that, there's an entire field of "medicine" that's based on pseudo-science: psychiatry! Too bad most people are too uneducated to understand that!
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Your brain works on chemicals, just like the rest of the body. Why is it so hard to understand that there may be abnormalities in those chemicals, just as there are abnormalities elsewhere in the body? Are you aware that many diseases have abnormal mental states as part of their symptoms - from liver disease to conditions that cause changes in calcium levels in the blood? Even fevers can cause delirium.
Psychiatry is not pseudo-science. New imaging methods are helping to find the brain changes that correspond to to abnormal mood.
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Originally Posted by GuyNTexas
We've all been to elementary school, and I assume that they still teach kids about George Washington, and other notable figures of history. Look at all those old, white haired men who founded this nation in the 1700's. So many figures in the past which lived to ripe old ages simply does not jibe with this nonsensical crap about everyone dying by the age of thirty.
The truth is, many people didn't live long in those days, but this was the difference between privilege and commoner, who lived much harsher lives than their aristocratic contemporaries. Better food, cleaner water, better housing and environment, along with less or very little hard personal labor accounted for the differing life expectancy between aristocrat and commoner... not this supposed miracle of modern medicine that didn't exist then.
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The cemeteries are filled with people from that era who did not survive to old age, though. Arguing that because some did live to advanced ages that few died young is nonsense.
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While modern medicine does have certain tools now that routinely save lives that would have been lost in days past, like antibiotics, and such .., and trauma is also a thing modern medicine deals with far more effectively ... the actual state of health from a wellness/sickness perspective is a monumental failure today.
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Big Pharm developed, makes, and sells those antibiotics. It also develops, makes, and sells the drugs that help people survive trauma.
Since we are living long enough for problems of aging to develop it would appear that modern medicine is doing something right. Many of the problems people have are due to personal choices made in spite of the recommendations of physicians. Modern medicine can do nothing for patients who choose not to do what their doctors tell them to do.
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The general life expectancy of the masses has increased in modern times not because of pharmaceutical drugs, but from better overall living conditions, sanitation, refrigeration, cleaner water and more abundant food. Yet, we are now experiencing a decline .... as our food and water is being poisoned, making us fatter and sicker than ever ... perfect candidates for those miracle cures of modern medicine!
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The biggest effect on life expectancy has been from prevention and treatment of infectious diseases.
We are fatter because we eat too much, despite doctors telling us not to.
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Originally Posted by Spartacus713
You don't know what you are talking about. Either that, or you do know better, but you just don't care, because anyone who dares contradict the leftist talking points must be demonized and destroyed, which is pretty clearly what we are seeing you try to do here.
The Lancet is one of the most respected medical journals in the UK. That is a fact.
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The
Lancet is slipping in prestige because of some of its editorial policies, including some that border on anti-semitism.
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Originally Posted by GuyNTexas
Oh how wrong you are. Modern pharmaceutical medicine only addresses symptoms, and not the underlying causes of disease, which is why all of those things you mentioned ... cancer, diabetes are all on the rise. If modern medicine was so effective, the opposite would be true ... these diseases would be disappearing, not exploding.
On the other hand, natural medicine has been extremely successful in curing diseases pharmaceuticals couldn't. And this dates back to before you were even born! Of course, if you wait for mainstream sources to educate you about this, you'll remain uneducated. You have to do your own educating ... the information is out there.
Dr. Max Version .... his diet was the first cure for skin tuberculosis ... published in all the top medical journals. The famed Nobel prize winner, Dr Albert Schweitzer was cured of his diabetes by Dr Gerson
, and Schweitzers wife was cured of her lung tuberculosis by Gerson. Keep reading and you'll find cancer cure here as well.
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Many medical interventions treat the cause. Antibiotics are a good example.
There is no evidence Gerson ever cured anyone. His cancer therapy has killed people, though.
Sharyn Ainscough dies tragically because she followed the example of her daughter, The Wellness Warrior – Respectful Insolence
Gerson therapy - The Skeptic's Dictionary - Skepdic.com
Quote:
Originally Posted by GuyNTexas
Western, or allopathic/pharmaceutical medicine cures NOTHING, and often either causes an increase in the disease being treated, or causes side effects worse than the disease being treated. Natural medicine, on the other hand, incorporates an emphasis on diet and lifestyle changes that actually does cure, and prevent diseases.
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Doctors cure infections all the time.
Most patients do not have severe side effects from medications.
Diet and lifestyle are indeed important. Doctors tell patients that, then patients go home, eat junk food, and sit on the couch.
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Such diseases are far more likely a result of the crap food, laden with chemicals, and absent of essential nutrients the body needs to prevent illness!! .Food which, by the way, is also regulated under the watchful eye of the FDA ... Food & Drug Administratiin. The food now is almost as poisonous as the drugs! What a great job the FDA is doing, if the goal is to kill us all, slowly.
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No one makes anyone eat junk food.
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The rate of obesity is just another manifestation of the corporate food industry which loads the grocery store shelves with processed food of which half the ingredients most can't even pronounce. Natural medicine does absolutely address that by advising people to eat organic food, avoid those chemical poisons, and supplement the diet with food based vitamins and minerals which have been depleted by mega corporate farming and massive chemical based fertilizers.
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There is no evidence organic foods contain more nutrients than those grown conventionally. If plants are so nutritionally deficient, how can "food based" vitamins and minerals be so good? Your body does not care where vitamins and minerals come from, by the way. They are just chemicals, whether from food (and most of us get all we need from food if we eat wisely) or made in a factory.
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Wrong, and very naive. Pharmaceutical medicine is absolutely ALL ABOUT MONEY. Given that prescription drugs prescribed by doctors and taken as directed, kill 200,000 people each year ... it sure ain't about health, cuz dying ain't very healthy.
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Supplement companies are raking in big bucks.
How many of those 200,000 were so sick they would have died without being treated?
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Originally Posted by dreaminofitall
Pretty embarrassing post.
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Yep.
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Can anyone narrow down what the central argument is here?
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Science is bad.
Of course, the OP was written on a machine that would not exist without science.
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Originally Posted by Hyperthetic
Nikola Tesla didn't depend on the scientific method much.
Neither did Thomas Edison.
Had they been restricted to scientific proofs, we'd still be be watching puppet shows by candlelight.
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Oh, Tesla did his scientific proofs. He just did them with his amazing brain, aided by a condition called synesthesia. He also had eidetic memory. His lab was inside his head.
Nikola Tesla, A Trailblazer in Science — From Quarks to Quasars
Edison used more of a trial and error approach, but his goal was invention, not theory.
Thomas Edison - New World Encyclopedia
"Edison is quoted as saying, 'When I want to discover something, I begin by reading up everything that has been done along that line in the past—that's what all these books in the library are for. I see what has been accomplished at great labor and expense in the past.
I gather data of many thousands of experiments as a starting point, and then I make thousands more' (dated 1914 by Dagobert D. Runes (editor), The Diary and Sundry Observations of Thomas Alva Edison. New York: Philosophical Library, 1948.)"
Far from discrediting science, your examples just show that not all scientists work the same way.
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Originally Posted by emilybh
I would like to know how there is any logic whatsoever of giving Chemotherapy to a cancer patient. There are only two sides to Chemistry -- acid and alkaline. When we are healthy our immune system is alkaline enough where our lymph can circulate easily throughout our bodies. When you have a condition like cancer with a clogged immune/lymphatic system that is highly acidic-- characterized by an over acid pH, does it make any sense to correct the problem by adding MORE ACID with chemotherapy? Furthermore, what is the logic behind a woman with breast cancer having the surgeon also cut out the lymph node as a "safe guard" under her arm? That makes about as much sense as removing your septic tank at your house if it overflows. Where are the wastes supposed to go after the lymph node is removed, to the lungs?
I won't even start on the torture they put burn victims through with skin grafts when soothing healing herbs like Aloe could be used as an alternative.
You don't have to have a medical degree to see BASIC egregious practices that take place every day in western medicine. All you have to do is look and question. Yet the sad thing is people don't question their doctors because we are all conditioned not to question them since they have been to "medical school". But when you just think about some of what they do, a LOT of it doesn't make any sense at all.
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Hogwash. Pseudoscience with no basis in the facts of physiology. Your post also shows deficits in understanding human anatomy.
Any burn big enough to need a graft is not going to be helped by aloe.
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Originally Posted by emilybh
Right. Western Medicine has always been ALL ABOUT THE MONEY especially here in America. At least in other countries other modes are offered on a level playing field and not maligned like they are here.
Also I used to go to the World Health Organization website and though their statistics on the amount of money on "healthcare" per capita spent was far more in this country than anywhere else, another statistic showed that only a very small percentage of our "geriatric population" had a "healthy life expectancy". The last time I checked years ago, we were spending over $5000 per capita. Cuba spent about $350 per capita and their percentage of geriatric population with a healthy life expectancy was the same as ours! Is that sad or what? It shows we are getting squat for our money. Yet Japan, Italy, Spain, Australia and even the U.K. and others spent in the $2000 range and they all had a much larger geriatric population with a healthy life expectancy - like double or triple the percentage we had - and spent in some cases less than half of what we spent.
I bet if I checked there now I'd find, thanks to Obamacare, our costs have skyrocketed even beyond where they were.... and we STILL wouldn't have anything to show for it.
Regarding effectiveness of chemo, they've known for years that about 2 percent of chemo does any benefit. When you think of all the famous people who start chemo, they all die soon after. Steve Jobs is a good example. He never should have succumb to his family's wishes to do it. It KILLED him.
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We spend too much on health care, large chunks of money being sucked up by administration costs and large chunks being spent on end of life care when families want to keep granny alive at all costs. A single payor system and doctors with the gumption to say no to futile care would make a big dent in the cost.
Jobs was killed by falling victim to alternative woo. If diet and lifestyle can cure cancer it absolutely should have cured his. If he had followed the advice of his doctors, who discovered his cancer early, he likely would still be with us today.
Plenty of celebrities who've had chemo are still with us.
You need a source for your "2%" claim. Who is "they"?
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Originally Posted by emilybh
That is true also. Sanitation and clean(ish) water have done more to help us than the medical community has. If you research the archives of the effects of the Polio vaccine you'll find it came out just after the worst of the epidemic was over and there were groups they studied back then that received the vaccination (the military bases) versus those that didn't have access to it and it was the VACCINATED population that had the greatest number of polio victims. So certainly I'm not sold on the efficacy of any vaccine. Basically, I think the medical community should stick to what they excel at which is acute care. They should stay away from prevention and stay away from chronic and degenerative problems.
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Nope, sanitation is believed to have contributed to polio epidemics.
How Modern Sanitation Gave Us Polio « NextNature.net
Vaccines are the most successful preventative on the planet. Please tell me how you would treat type 1 diabetes without insulin. Perhaps Dr. Allen's starvation diet?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Madison_Allen
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Originally Posted by emilybh
I do exactly that for anything but a serious accident. I haven't so much as taken an aspirin or Tylenol in probably 25 years.
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Why would you trust medicine for a serious accident, treatment for which will assuredly include pharmaceuticals, some of which, like anesthetics, can be dangerous, and which are made by the very same drug companies you so despise?
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Originally Posted by emilybh
Obviously you haven't done any research. People stop heart attacks; strokes;diabetes and cancer every day without western medicine. Mamy people would say western medicine makes those things WORSE. All you have to do is go on YouTube to find testimonials of people who have done it never mind hundreds of books that have been written about it on Amazon. What they all have in common is that they use herbs and they drastically change their diet while healing.
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A healthy lifestyle may reduce the risk of heart attack, stroke, cancer, diabetes, and many chronic conditions. Anyone who thinks he's having a heart attack is advised to take an aspirin and call 911. If you know any treatment, however, that will "stop" heart attacks, strokes, or cancer after they have started, I would like to see the evidence to support your claim.
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Originally Posted by MissTerri
Isn't it weird that people consider nutrition and healthy eating to be "alternative health".
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They don't. One of alt med's mantras is that doctors know nothing about nutrition. That is false. Even my ophthalmologist discusses it.
Lifestyle changes are at the core for treating abnormal blood lipids, hypertension, and diabetes.
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