In article <[email hidden]>,
Gymmy Bob said:Would require controlled testing and double blind studies.
Eventually, but not necessarily right off the bat.
Quoted message said:This may cost up to one million dollars to perform.
Preliminary studies wouldn't. (See below.)
Quoted message said:The medical control people have made sure that "no money" medical procedures are never tested so
they can keep putting them down and disputing them successfully to the ignorant people.
What alties seem to forget is that controlled studies are the last step in developing evidence for a
treatment. Before that, you have to do preliminary studies to determine if the controlled studies
are even worth pursuing. If the preliminary studies are promising, THEN the randomized studies
become worthwhile. Often, these preliminary studies are not all that expensive. Certainly, in the
case of gallbladder flushes, it would be relatively inexpensive.
One preliminary study would actually be fairly easy and straightforward. It wouldn't even be that
expensive and could probably be done for maybe $10,000 or $20,000, depending on the number of
patients used. You would need a group of patients with symptomatic gallstones documented by
ultrasound and whatever other medical tests were appropriate. You could choose a group that was
going to undergo surgery anyway, but have them delay their surgery a few weeks to undergo the full
course of gallbladder flushes. You could then do ultrasound studies of them before the flushes, in
the middle of the flushes, and after the flushes are complete. Anything they pass in their stool
that looks like it might be a stone, you would count and send to the lab to determine if it really
is a stone. At the end, you would look at the pathology results of the gallbladders removed and
carefully look at the remaining stones to see if there were any signs that they had shrunk. (The
cost of surgery would not be in the study budget because surgery is the standard of care for
symptomatic gallbladder disease and would therefore be paid for by insurance or other means.) Any
objective evidence that the number of gallstones decreased in the group of people treated with
flushes would be considered a promising result. Any evidence that people undergoing gallbladder
flushes were passing lots of gallstones in their stool would be considered a promising result.
Randomized double-blind studies may be the gold standard as far as evidence goes, but less
complicated and less expensive studies are the preliminary work necessary to justify them.
--
Orac |"A statement of fact cannot be insolent."
|
|"If you cannot listen to the answers, why do you inconvenience me with questions?"
