Peter Bowditch said:(Jan) said:Quoted message said:Subject: Anti-quackery committee
From: Peter Bowditch [email hidden]
Date: 11/24/02 4:36 PM US Eastern Standard Time
Message-id: <[email hidden]>On the front page of this week's update to The Millenium Project
Quoted message said:Will you be praying? People with consciences won't
With two years still to go until the next Olympics, Jan puts in a
pre-emptive bid for a gold medal in Diversion and Deception.Observant people will note that the topic of this thread is
"Anti-quackery committee". My original message contained what I had
said on my site. Jan snipped this IN ITS ENTIRETY (without any
acknowledgement of the snipping, of course), and then quoted the
headline from another article on the site as if it had something to do
with what I had been talking about. She even managed to get the number
of ">" marks just right to make it look like the words "Will you be
praying? People with consciences won't" appeared in my original
message. She took out words without saying that she had done so and
added some other words as if they had been there all along.And she keeps accusing me and many other people of lying!
Quoted message said:Peter now decides *who* should be praying???
A real control problem!
I decide nothing. And while we are talking about the words you
fraudulently quoted as if they were in the original message, "Will you
be praying? People with consciences won't", why don't you tell us what
you think about what they referred to?Do you believe it is better to pray for a murderer than to pray for
the small child that the murderer cruelly beat to death? Remember that
the murderer is totally unrepentant, and that the day of prayer is the
anniversary of another violent crime that the thug committed in an
attempt to avoid taking responsibility for his actions.Quoted message said:The 100,000 needless deaths (16/11/02)
A couple of years ago, a study was published which claimed that the number of
deaths caused by medical errors in hospitals in the USA was somewhere between
48,000 and 94,000 each year.The size of this range of results is enough to indicate that the values are
meaningless, and the numbers have been debunked by others so I won't repeat
that work here. I am interested in the "100,000" number which gets repeated ad
nauseum. Someone keeps ranting at me on newsgroups and demanding that, as well
as looking at quackery, I should be investigating those real doctors who keep
killing people. Constant reference is made to the "100,000 needless deaths"
each year in the US, and I am asked what I have to say about this horror. On 7
December, 1999, I sent a message to the Healthfraud Discussion List commenting
on the 48-94,000 numbers in which I said: "There appears to be a lot of
uncertainty in the data gathering. The alt-medders will use the upper estimate,
of course (rounded up to 100,000 and with the qualifier "more than" to indicate
uncertainty)". So my comment on the 100,0000 needless deaths is that the number
is just made up. I know this because I was the person who made it up.So HOW MANY are there Peter??? Please do imform us. Should we be
concerned,,,,,,,,,,,or just squawk about quackery,,,,,,,,,,,which is in the eye
of the beholder.Many less than 100,000 in the USA. More than there should be. We
should be concerned, and we are, and people are doing something about
it. You choose not to believe that because it would go against some
tenet of your anti-medicine faith.Quoted message said:A repost:
From where is this reposted?
Quoted message said:A professor from Harvard Medical School did a study in 1989. He looked at
30,000 records from 50 hospitals in NY. This showed that 4% of injuries were
caused by treatment. Two thirds of these were due to errors. With his extensive
study he estimated that there were 1.3 million mistakes and 180,000 deaths,
each year in the US. His peers of course shunned him, they were estimates after
all.What is the name of this "professor from Harvard"? Timothy Leary was a
"professor from Harvard" and he was a raving kook. John Mack is a
"professor from Harvard" and he believes that people are regularly
abducted by aliens. Noel Ignatiev is a "professor at Harvard" and he
believes all white people should be killed.Quoted message said:Then a journalist from Penn. was doing a story on a hospital that had filed
bankruptcy. She was in the clerks office in Philly, pulling individual case
files, when in the back of one of these files she found over 600 pages of
hospital summeries of errors and 66 deaths over a period of 10 years.What is the name of this journalist? Please note that this was a
hospital that had gone broke (so much for the massive profits of
eeevil organized medicine) and ipso facto was not representative of
all hospitals in the country.Quoted message said:****All ofthe errors were covered up.***
Yet the files were available to any journalist without a name who
walked in from the street and started opening filing cabinets.Quoted message said:She began to inform the famiiles, and found that they did feel that something
was wrong. These figures seemed to fit with the professors estimates.It went on
to say that the big problem is that doctors won't admit to their mistakes. Many
were caused by junior doctors without proper supervision. They were left on
their own to make decisions. (I know this to be true, as my CRA's hubby is
doing his internship and he has told me of the many exasperating times when
this has happen to him).Another big reason is the over worked experienced
staff, both nurses and doctors. Even experienced medical staff make far too
many mistakes. Also the many drugs doctors have to choose from. It showed how
these drugs arestored and how there is so much similarly in the packaging and
the names. It is estimated that you chances of being injured in an airplane
crash are one in three million, being injured in a hospital is one in two
hundred. Doctors are human, humans make errors. It is NOT my intention to bash
doctors personally.Not personally. Unless they are called "Barrett" of course. You just
bash doctors as a group. I believe your collective noun for a group of
doctors is "evil organized medicine".Quoted message said:God knows they carry a tremendous load of responsibility.
There were doctors who told of their mistakes and it stayed with them for a
lifetime. The point of the show was that there are entirely too many needless
mistakes. This is very serious, there is no mystery as to *why* these
mistakes are happening, yet this problem is not being corrected.Do you have evidence that no hospital in the country is trying to
improve its safety record? That is what the words "this problem is not
being corrected" mean.Quoted message said:Then we have doctors who have committed fraud, coverups, lies,
dishonesty,,,,,,,,,and they are still on staff.I do not believe that doctors who commit fraud should be allowed to
stay on staff. If it happens it is unfortunate, wrong, and nothing to
do with "evil organized medicine". Do not ask me about this again
unless you want to be accused of deliberate topic diversion.Quoted message said:Peter doesn't want to discuss that,,,,,,,,,,,,,,rather he tells us who should
pray,,,,,,,,,,,Will you be praying for Alan Yurko, Jan?
Quoted message said:<snip>
Ah! Jan finally gets around to using the "s" word, but by now nobody
would have a clue what was being snipped.Quoted message said:I have created a page to collect the opposition to the committee and
my comments about it. You can see the sorry spectacle here.http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles/quackery/
I am an advisor to the committee
What are your qualifications to be advisor, Peter?
My qualifications to be involved with the committee are far greater
than your qualifications to comment about poisonous mercury.Quoted message said:WHY have you not answered this repeated question???????
As a matter of fact there are several you have not answered,,,,,,,,,,,,
WHO decides what is useless, and what is *potentially* dangerous??????
AND DO YOU AND YOUR BUDDIES PLAN TO STOP WHAT IS ALREADY KNOWN TO BE
DANGEROUS??Would you prefer that things already known to be dangerous are still
allowed to be sold?Quoted message said:And WHAT are YOUR qualifications, Peter??? Like Barrett, are YOU qualiified too
make these decisions????My qualifications to be involved with the committee far exceed those
of Hulda Clark to give advice about cures for cancer. I thought you
would get around to mentioning Dr Barrett sooner or later.Quoted message said:Quoted message said:I assume that you are not in favour of vulnerable people being ripped
off.You are correct. *MY* concern is WHO decides and WHAT are their
qualifications???So you admit you are concerned about the qualifications of people who
offer cures for cancer and other diseases. I am concerned about that
too. That is why I don't like to see fraudsters hawking bogus
electrical machines, for exampleQuoted message said:Is this a CONTROL problem?? Sure sounds like *anything* NOT endored by
*organized medicine* is either useless or *potentially* dangerous. Is this
correct??No.
Quoted message said:Are you a right hand man for Barrett??
I have never met Dr Barrett. I have never spoken to Dr Barrett.
Quoted message said:AND WHAT ARE YOUR QUALIFICATIONS???????
My qualifications to be involved with the committee apparently exceed
the qualifications of ex-dentist Harold Huggins, as I, despite being a
mere lay person, can easily tell from an X-ray whether a tooth has an
amalgam filling or not.Quoted message said:I predict,,,,,,,,,,,,,,that *ANYTHING* not endorsed by organized medicine will
be banned,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,You predict wrong.
Quoted message said:Now, do show us how TRUTHFUL you are and tell us WHAT ARE YOUR QUALIFICATIONS
TO BE ON THIS COMMITTEE,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,I am writing this on International AIDS Day, so it would be
appropriate to point out that my qualifications to be an advisor to
the committee (not "on" the committee) exceed those of Lenny Horowitz
to say anything at all because he believes that AIDS is being spread
as part of some government plot.Quoted message said:It is You who is always saying practitioners are not qualified, NOW I am asking
WHAT ARE YOUR QUALIFACTIONS??????My qualifications are that I am a scientifically-literate, concerned
citizen with a particular interest in medical quackery. I am sick of
seeing liars and thieves get away with their lying and thieving. I am
sick of hearing stories about families being impoverished in order to
pay for useless medical treatments for their sick children. I am sick
of hearing about desperate people being robbed of their life savings
by charlatans who only care about money. I am sick of hearing that
murderers are heros and heros are murderers.Or, as Sir Edmund Hillary said: "Because it's there".
If I make an error and I can correct it, I will.
That quote actually came from George Mallory when he was asked in 1923
why he wanted to climb Mount Everest. He died in an attempt on the
mountain the following year. His body was found in 1999, 75 years
later.
--
Peter Bowditch
The Millenium Project http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles
The Green Light http://www.ratbags.com/greenlight
To email me use my first name only at ratbags.com