Why are we here?

Quoted message said:

Subject: Re: Why are we here?
From: "Peter Moran" [email hidden]
Date: 12/5/2003 1:22 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:
<[email hidden]>

<snip>

Quoted message said:

False advertising can also get them, but again requires client compaints.

This shows how Peter just ignored that Kadile was rail roaded and NO patient
complaints.

It doesn't matter if he sees proof, he still repeats what organized medicine
has taught him.

Brainwashing supreme.

Jan

Quoted message said:

Subject: Re: Why are we here?
From: "Anth" [email hidden]
Date: 12/5/2003 4:23 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id: <[email hidden]>

I think this is more realistic.
http://www.healthy.net/asp/templates/article.asp?PageType=article&ID=2003
Anth

Execllent Anth!!

Thank you.

Jan

Quoted message said:

"Anth" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

"Peter Moran" <[email hidden]> wrote in message

news:[email hidden].

com.au...

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That is mostly possible. Dpctors are mostly tolerant of this.

Do you think a doctor would help the person do their quackery without risk
from peers?

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> Have you thought that some people might not want to go to their

doctors

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> because what they are doing could harm their doctors career?
>
That is not possible. In fact doctors themselves can get away with

almost

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anything. Burzinski and many other doctors are offering quack

remedies.

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It is usually only when there are patient complaints or relatives

complain

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about a death that doctors get into strife with quackery in most

countries.

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False advertising can also get them, but again requires client

compaints.

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I emailed the Burzinski clinic and I was utterly shocked at the prices

they

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charged.
(I have the PDF sitting on my desktop)

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A dentist treated 33000 cancer patients! The busiest oncologist would
scarcely do that in a lifetime and still have time to document and

follow

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them all up. The documentary evidence alone would have needed a

cathedral

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to house it. Anth, you must learn when your leg is being pulled.

Much

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of what is written about quack treatments is sheer fantasy, and it grows

by

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the year with historical methods as it becomes harder to check the

facts..

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According to this article Kelley had 33000 patients.
http://educate-yourself.org/cancer/kellypancreaticcancerpatients.shtml

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> The sceptics would pump holes in this - I don't see people like Dr

Barret

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> jumping out of his basement office and actually going to Kelley and
getting
> copies of his documents or monitoring patents.
>

If I had those results with serious cancer and no one took any notice I
would never rest. I would be thumping on the door of congressmen, going

to

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the WHO, enraging the press. There are plenty of avenues. Nowadays

there

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are also plenty of alternative jounrals to publish in. Gerson, the
Livingstone-Wheeler clinic and Americal Biologics, and Gonzales, Hoffer

have

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all done that and if you look at those publications it is clear that

there

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is no final answer to cancer there..

Gonzalez to me looks promising, like I say the best way to treat cancer is
to avoid getting it in the first place.
I think it would fall on deaf ears, as history had shown with Kelley.

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> > That is what you alternative supporters and enquirers should be
> encouraging.
> > Solid information is only antidote to your complaint.
>
> Well I do try, but there's so little solid information out there and

so

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much
> [censored] and misinformation and attacks on both sides.

Again implying a symmetry in this. Give me an example of a treatment

where

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the weight of evidence shows that it clearly works and that the medical
profession refuses to recognise.

Depends on what you mean as evidence - Coley's Toxins went through double
trials - I don't see Coley being offered in mainstream.
http://www.cancerguide.org/coley.html

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You will find that the alt promoters select little bits of evidence that

support their cause while ignoring a lot

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of experimental and empirical evidence against them.

That is the crux of the problem and people are ignorant of the whole
picture, which is human nature basically.

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> Solid information isn't an antidote the quacks would push their

therapy,

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> It's like the carrot on the stick for the donkey.
> I'm not even sure the information I see is 'solid.'

What is need is for the quack's clientele to dry up if they cannot show
stuff like, "OK you have breast cancer metastases. I have treated X
patients with this. This is what happened to them". That is not

difficult

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for any sincere professional. If every quack was under pressure to show
what his results really were most if not all of them would be out of
business overnight and the poor cancer patient's choices would become
infinitely simpler.

<See Kelley>
As I've said before I'm sure you could get hold of Kelley's original

records

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but it would take you years to sift through them.

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No one is going to patronise someone whose patients all died. Note

that

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Gerson had no survivors in the largest group of their

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melanoma patients, those with distant metastases, even though melanoma

was

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the cancer they believed they had best results with.. (Note I have

never

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said that alternatives have no effect on cancer. I just don;t think

that

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they cure many patients, if at all)

I think the 'miracle cases' go a long way towards the hype.
If you count spontaneous remissions as alt med then they are very rare,

but

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how many of these are documented?.

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> Today I was reading about high dose chemotherapy along with other

elements

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> to limit the toxicity. That _totally_ blew away my views on

chemotherapy.

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> The low dose chemotherapy was from a mainstream treatment, the other
> elements were quackery but enabled the patient to take 4-5x the dose

of

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> chemo.
??? Where is this? I have heard of low dose chemo with insulin being
given by probable quacks but not this.

Sourced from articles about the Janker clinic in Germany.
Mostly about Dr Scheef's work with nitrogen mustards and cysteine fluids
acidosis etc.
http://www.canhelp.com/articles/

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No degree makes one either ethical or scientific. Nor does it impart

any

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knowledge of the usual progress of cancer. How many ever worked with
cancer before deciding they had the cure? None.. They were dentists,
psychiatrists, TB sanatorium worker (Gerson), public relations man (The
shark cartilage fellow), etc, Some are sincere but mislead by the very
variable natural history of cancer.

Dr Kelley had pancreatic cancer with mets.

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Doctors can be badly mistaken but they have shown a good record of

finding

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that out. The sheer volume of critical comment and research that goes

on

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in

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medicine ensures that medical practice does not go astray for long.

> <see above>
>
> > And I object to the implication that I am insincere in this.
> > Peter Moran
>
> I am sure you are sincere and always have been, so what would be your
> solution to this?

I have tried to explain. Pressure has to be put back onto the quacks to

do

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their homework or else. Medicine hasn't got the resources nor

inclination

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(especially after many negative results from "alternatives" most

recently

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orthomolecular therapy of cancer) to be investigating the dozens of wild
claims, and it never was quite fair to be putting the blame wholly on

it.

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Agreed and I think each patient should be followed up by a nonbiased
independant source, so in the cases of death people actually know, rather
than their records being buried or lost. .

Quoted message said:

Peter Moran

Anth

I think Peter is being realistic and fair.
He quotes correctly that none of stage IV Gerson patients in the melanoma
study were alive at 5 years.
The hype around Gerson usually is a cure for cancer etc. the stage V data
from this study doesn't live up to the hype.
There were 100% of stage 1 people alive at year 1 which is probably around
what mainstream medicine will give you.
I think that provided this information is valid, then there is value in
Gerson for treating cancer - maybe as a complementary treatment.
I would like to look at Kelley's records and see the results from them.
Anth

"Jan" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Subject: Re: Why are we here?
From: "Anth" [email hidden]
Date: 12/5/2003 4:23 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id: <[email hidden]>

I think this is more realistic.
http://www.healthy.net/asp/templates/article.asp?PageType=article&ID=2003
Anth

Execllent Anth!!

Thank you.

Jan

In article
<[email hidden]
..au>,

Peter Moran said:

"Anth" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

/rant on

How can we be sure of a treatment when there's so much lies and distortion
written about them ?
For instance take chelation, I see a critique of the figures from various
trials showing that the data does indeed show that there's benefit from

the

Quoted message said:

treatment despite of the results of the trial.
Who am I to believe? Who do you believe? I'd like to see some debate on

the

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big pharm drugs when they don't work via trials.

If the system was such the perfect pinnacle of truth that people make out

in

Quoted message said:

here then surely people wouldn't write so much propaganda against it? The
whole thing plays like a conspiracy novel to me.

Oh, grow up!! Conspiracy by whom? The time would never be more
propitious for any person who thinks they have an alternative answer to any
important illness to make that known. There has never been more support for
"alternatives" in high places, more money for "alternative" research,
more publications on "alternative" research, more "alternative" journals
eager for such research, or more genuine interest in alternatives in stuffy
old universities and medical journals. In Australia thirty per cent of
doctors are using "alternatives" of some kind mainly herbs and acupuncture.

Large sections of the medical profession have been cowed into a pretence
that "alternative medicine" might be rather nice after all, ignoring the
fact that it is also about the ignorant being led to their doom by serious
quackery. Thirty or forty years ago they were not scared to call a spade a
spade.

Indeed. Just as there is more freedom for doctors to consider and
discuss the use of "alternative" medicine, there seems to me also to
have developed an orthodoxy that says we should not criticize
"alternative" medicine, lest we be "judgmental" or "arrogant." Look at
the bile and hatred that get heaped upon Barrett and anyone associated
with Quackwatch. Most doctors decide they'd rather not be targeted for
such vitriol or even lawsuits at the hands of self-proclaimed (and
self-promoting) "activists" such as Tim Bolen and therefore decide to
remain silent. Others decide they would rather not risk angering
patients by getting too vocal against alternative medicine.

Even though alternative medicine is becoming more "mainstream," some of
its proponents still find it convenient to adopt the pose of victims of
a vast conspiracy by pharmaceutical companies and the medical
profession. It allows them to make excuses for the lack of evidence that
their treatments actually do what they claim.

Quoted message said:

Go here and you will find that nearly three hundred billion dollars are now
going into "alternative research" yearly.

http://nccam.nih.gov/about/budget/institute-center.htm

Indeed. NCCAM's budget alone is around $116 million, nearly triple what
it was just five years ago!

Quoted message said:

The conspiracy is alleged by those who most need to hide behind it, as an
excuse for not being able to justify their claims.. .The silence from those
who claim to be curing cancer is especially deafening.

If these "alternative" treatments were as effective against cancer as
claimed by their proponents, it would be trivially easy to prove it in
even a relatively small randomized clinical trial

--
Orac |"A statement of fact cannot be insolent."
|
|"If you cannot listen to the answers, why do you
| inconvenience me with questions?"

In article <[email hidden]>,

Anth said:

I would agree but in the case of Dr Rath, he did go for funding and _didn't_
get it.

Perhaps his preliminary data was not convincing. Perhaps he didn't
present much preliminary data. Perhaps he was a lousy writer. There
could be many reasons he didn't get funded. Perhaps he just wasn't
persistent enough. It's VERY uncommon for an investigator to get funded
on the first attempt at an NIH grant application. It usually takes at
least two or three tries, sometimes more. What usually happens is that
the grant gets rejected the first time, and the investigator resubmits
the application, trying to address the criticisms of the reviewers. If
the investigator adequately addresses these criticisms and provides more
data, often that will put him over the top. Sometimes yet another
rewrite is needed to get over the top. Depending on the specific study
section, usually only 12-30% of applications get funded, and usually
resubmissions get precedence because they've been in the pipeline for a
while.

So, I have to wonder: How many times did Rath apply to the NIH for
funding? I get sick of hearing about altie doctors who whine about not
getting funding from the NIH. All too frequently I find out that they
only applied once or didn't really apply at all. One example comes to
mind of someone who complained that the NIH refused to fund his work. It
turns out he had only written to the NIH asking for funding. He got back
a very cordial and encouraging letter from the Chief of the relevant
Branch of the NCI encouraging him to apply for funding! It makes me
wonder if he thought the NCI would just hand him hundreds of thousands
of dollars just because he wrote a letter! No, this is a government
agency. You have to go through the system, file a formal application
with all the relevant supporting documentation, and go through the peer
review process through the relevant study section.

Quoted message said:

Had he got funding we would know if his therapy works or not or have a big
conspiracy behind it.

Nothing is stopping him from trying again. With NCCAM around, if he has
decent preliminary data, sooner or later he would get funded.

Quoted message said:

I think that Dr Rath now sees what they are and just doesn't want to be part
of their game plan.

Or perhaps he's just too lazy to do what EVERY OTHER SCIENTIST AND
MEDICAL RESEARCHER has to do to get funding from the NIH and submit
multiple applications, or maybe he thinks he deserves special treatment.
Or maybe his claim of wanting to validate his therapy scientifically is
not as serious as he would like us to believe.

Quoted message said:

Who's to say NCCAM isn't corrupt to the core?

Actually, if anything NCCAM is *too* willing to bend over backwards to
fund alternative medicine trials that have little good preliminary data
to support them.

--
Orac |"A statement of fact cannot be insolent."
|
|"If you cannot listen to the answers, why do you
| inconvenience me with questions?"

In article <[email hidden]>,

Markiosos2 Probertiosos2 said:

"Anth" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Had he got funding we would know if his therapy works or not or have a big
conspiracy behind it.
I think that Dr Rath now sees what they are and just doesn't want to be

part

Quoted message said:

of their game plan.
Who's to say NCCAM isn't corrupt to the core?
Anth

Most people. To deny funding, unless the study is utterly ludicrous, defeats
its purpose.

Also, remember this: One major purpose of the existence of these
Institutes of the NIH is to give researchers grants to pursue their
research. The money is earmarked for nothing else but being given out as
grants and can be used for nothing else. The NIH must give it to
researchers as grants or risk having its budget cut. (Like all
government agencies, the NIH has a strong incentive to spend its entire
budget every year, particularly in the area of grants.)

--
Orac |"A statement of fact cannot be insolent."
|
|"If you cannot listen to the answers, why do you
| inconvenience me with questions?"

Orac <[email hidden]> wrote in
news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Indeed. Just as there is more freedom for doctors to consider and
discuss the use of "alternative" medicine, there seems to me also to
have developed an orthodoxy that says we should not criticize
"alternative" medicine, lest we be "judgmental" or "arrogant." Look at
the bile and hatred that get heaped upon Barrett and anyone associated
with Quackwatch. Most doctors decide they'd rather not be targeted for
such vitriol or even lawsuits at the hands of self-proclaimed (and
self-promoting) "activists" such as Tim Bolen and therefore decide to
remain silent. Others decide they would rather not risk angering
patients by getting too vocal against alternative medicine.

I think it's part of what I consider a very distressing trend affecting
nearly all sectors of society, namely the tendency to confuse criticism
with censorship. We've gone from believing that marginalized or oppressed
people should have a voice that isn't shut up by their opponents (good) to
believing that anyone who claims to be marginalized or oppressed should be
able to shut up the voices of anyone who disagrees with them (bad). We
seem to have forgotten that having a voice doesn't entitle anyone to have
the last word, and that if in the past the powerful acted that way, merely
turning the tables is acting as if two wrongs made a right.

It's an ideology that appears on the surface to be progressive, but is in
reality extremely reactionary. Far from liberating the oppressed, it
merely gives those who would oppress, as well as those who would merely
bamboozle, rhetorical license to do so.

Where did it come from? Probably a whole lot of places, some fairly
surprising. One place was likely the recovery movement, where "no
invalidation allowed" rules that were originally intended simply to prevent
AA meetings from turning into slagfests somehow became enshrined as
overarching philosophies. And another may have been the feminist movement
in the early 1980s, which was starting to shift (as it had done in the
nineteenth century) from seeking to politically and socially empower women
to seeking to protect them from a whole array of dangers, in the process
ending up emphasizing people's fragility rather than their power. In some
feminist circles, criticism and argument became "inherently male" modes of
behavior, and being asked to defend one's ideas became a danger to be
protected from. Still another may have been the political Right's
extremely successful co-option of the rhetoric the Left used in the sixties
(at the extreme giving us people like David Duke as a "white civil rights
leader"😉.

But wherever it came from, it's dangerous. It's effectively the same
ideology that asks "if it was bad for the Nazis to be intolerant of the
Jews, why wasn't it just as bad for the Jews to be intolerant of the
Nazis?"

Quoted message said:

Even though alternative medicine is becoming more "mainstream," some
of its proponents still find it convenient to adopt the pose of
victims of a vast conspiracy by pharmaceutical companies and the
medical profession. It allows them to make excuses for the lack of
evidence that their treatments actually do what they claim.

Yep, the "victim pose" is one of the more disgusting outcomes of the
"criticism is censorship" ideology, except that it doesn't so much flow
from the ideology itself rather than use it as an excuse for a transparent
sales ploy. It's like Ann Coulter, when appearing on national TV to
promote her multi-million-selling books, claiming that she's being
"censored" and "suppressed." Excuse me, people who are truly censored
*don't* have the run of the media; that is what the term *means*. People
who are censored don't make millions of dollars by daring to speak out;
they put their lives at risk by daring to speak out. Why *anyone* would
fail to recognize this promotional ploy for the [censored] it is is beyond
me.

I think one of the culprits here is the media's tendency to treat anything
and everything as a form of entertainment, turning genuine debate into
something as irrelevant as professional wrestling. Neil Postman's _Amusing
Ourselves to Death_ has some good insights here.

Quoted message said:

Subject: Re: Why are we here?
From: Eric Bohlman [email hidden]
Date: 12/6/2003 9:02 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id: <[email hidden]>

Orac <[email hidden]> wrote in
news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Indeed. Just as there is more freedom for doctors to consider and
discuss the use of "alternative" medicine, there seems to me also to
have developed an orthodoxy that says we should not criticize
"alternative" medicine, lest we be "judgmental" or "arrogant."

Here??? Nah, never.

Quoted message said:

Look at the bile and hatred that get heaped upon Barrett and anyone associated

with Quackwatch.

My word, yes. Pour widdle sweet loving Stephen Barrett is so kind and all.

Quoted message said:

Most doctors decide they'd rather not be targeted for

Quoted message said:

such vitriol or even lawsuits at the hands of self-proclaimed (and
self-promoting) "activists" such as Tim Bolen and therefore decide to
remain silent.

LOLOLOL. Such vitriol and *even* lawsuits is unheard of from sweet widdle
Stephen Barrett. Yuper.

As for those doctors who remain silent, where are they??

Quoted message said:

Others decide they would rather not risk angering patients by getting too

vocal against alternative medicine.

Why would that anger patients?? You don't mean many patients believe in that
crazy stuff, do ya??

Surely not, why they must be delusional, or is it paraniod?? Narcissistic??
Gullible?? Ignorant??

Quoted message said:

I think it's part of what I consider a very distressing trend affecting
nearly all sectors of society, namely the tendency to confuse criticism
with censorship.

Quoted message said:

We've gone from believing

IN GOD, to man made rules where *anything* goes.

Therfore doing away with the bible and Christian principles.

<snip Eric's desperate rant to make wrongs right>

Quoted message said:

But wherever it came from, it's dangerous.

Yes.

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Even though alternative medicine is becoming more "mainstream," some

Quoted message said:

of its proponents still find it convenient to adopt the pose of
victims of a vast conspiracy by pharmaceutical companies and the
medical profession

Forget the convenient and deal with the truth.

Conspiracies, dishonesty and the almighty love of money are the American way.

Quoted message said:

It allows them to make excuses for the lack of evidence that their treatments

actually do what they claim.

Well, no, there are not too many left here who haven't been run off, that do
show lots of evidence, as well as studies proving that alternative did in fact
save their lives.

A pity how they are treated, and how organized medicine lies and denies.

Quoted message said:

Yep,

LOL. Stick together you lying bunch.

<snip>

Quoted message said:

Why *anyone* would
fail to recognize this promotional ploy for the [censored] it is is beyond
me.

Me 3!!!!!!!!!!

Jan

[email hidden] (Jan) wrote in
news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

We've gone from believing

IN GOD, to man made rules where *anything* goes.

Therfore doing away with the bible and Christian principles.

Since 1947, when Gallup started doing polls that asked people whether they
believed in God, the percentage of Americans who so believe has never
fluctuated more than a few percentage points from 95%.

Quoted message said:

Subject: Re: Why are we here?
From: Eric Bohlman [email hidden]
Date: 12/6/2003 10:01 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id: <[email hidden]>

[email hidden] (Jan) wrote in
news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

We've gone from believing

IN GOD, to man made rules where *anything* goes.

Therfore doing away with the bible and Christian principles.

Since 1947, when Gallup started doing polls that asked people whether they
believed in God, the percentage of Americans who so believe has never
fluctuated more than a few percentage points from 95%.

Maybe.

In 1947, there were no kids carrying guns to school, playing gross video games
of violence and playing heavy metal music, telling how to commit suicide,
watching HBO, and no gay marriages.

We've come a long way baby, and it is the wrong direction.

Clue for the debunkers to start spouting off about intolerance and
self-righteousness, which is an accepted lie.

Jan

Jan said:

Me 3!!!!!!!!!!

Don't tell me that you're blaming your amalgams for MPD as well!

[email hidden] (Jan) wrote in
news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

In 1947, there were no kids carrying guns to school, playing gross
video games of violence and playing heavy metal music, telling how to
commit suicide, watching HBO, and no gay marriages.

Marriages, straight or gay, are about love. Kids carrying guns to school
(a tragic, but thankfully rare (much rarer than most people think)
phenomenon) is about hate. Lumping them together is about stupidity.
"Watching HBO"???

Last time I checked, "heavy metal" referred to a particular arrangement of
guitar chords, drum beats, and bass lines; it would be rather difficult to
attach moral connotations to such things. Last time I checked, the most
popular American metal band was P.O.D. (standing for Payable On Death), an
explicitly Christian band.

Quoted message said:

We've come a long way baby, and it is the wrong direction.

I think you'll find that the number of US kids who died of measles in that
one year greatly exceeded the number of kids who died in school shootings
in all the years between 1947 and 2003. I think you'll find that the
number of US kids who died of measles in 2003 was negligible, and that the
answer to the question of why the difference occurred starts with "V".

Quoted message said:

If these "alternative" treatments were as effective against cancer as
claimed by their proponents, it would be trivially easy to prove it in
even a relatively small randomized clinical trial

I disagree http://www.nexusmagazine.com/irt1.html
Where are these randomised trials?
It seems to me that most of the treatments are rail roaded in the politics
and arrogance of the 'elite'

Quoted message said:

--
Orac |"A statement of fact cannot be insolent."
|
|"If you cannot listen to the answers, why do you
| inconvenience me with questions?"

In article <[email hidden]>,

Eric Bohlman said:

[email hidden] (Jan) wrote in
news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

In 1947, there were no kids carrying guns to school, playing gross
video games of violence and playing heavy metal music, telling how to
commit suicide, watching HBO, and no gay marriages.

Marriages, straight or gay, are about love. Kids carrying guns to school
(a tragic, but thankfully rare (much rarer than most people think)
phenomenon) is about hate. Lumping them together is about stupidity.
"Watching HBO"???

Oh, yes, watching HBO is a deadly sin. Did you not know?

In 1947, there were no electronic computers, color TV, polio vaccines
(and others), effective treatment for childhood cancers, VCRs, microwave
ovens, DVD players, commercial jet aircraft, and a host of other
things we now take for granted.

On the other hand, there was legal racial and religious discrimination
throughout the USA, for which I'm sure Jan is pining. There was a
"Red Scare" throughout the nation, too. A fearmonger like Jan
probably misses that, too.

-- David Wright :: alphabeta at prodigy.net
These are my opinions only, but they're almost always correct.
"If I have not seen as far as others, it is because giants
were standing on my shoulders." (Hal Abelson, MIT)

[email hidden] (David Wright) wrote in
news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

stupidity. "Watching HBO"???

Oh, yes, watching HBO is a deadly sin. Did you not know?

How could I have forgotten? Of course you're right: the Bible plainly says
that God created television for one and only one purpose, namely that
people could see and hear televangelists begging them to send money. Any
other use of television is contrary to natural law.

In article <[email hidden]>,

Eric Bohlman said:

Orac <[email hidden]> wrote in
news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Indeed. Just as there is more freedom for doctors to consider and
discuss the use of "alternative" medicine, there seems to me also to
have developed an orthodoxy that says we should not criticize
"alternative" medicine, lest we be "judgmental" or "arrogant." Look at
the bile and hatred that get heaped upon Barrett and anyone associated
with Quackwatch. Most doctors decide they'd rather not be targeted for
such vitriol or even lawsuits at the hands of self-proclaimed (and
self-promoting) "activists" such as Tim Bolen and therefore decide to
remain silent. Others decide they would rather not risk angering
patients by getting too vocal against alternative medicine.

I think it's part of what I consider a very distressing trend affecting
nearly all sectors of society, namely the tendency to confuse criticism
with censorship.

Indeed. It's what I frequently call confusing freedom OF speech with
freedom FROM criticism. Alties like Jan exhibit this confusion all the
time. The problem is, all too many people seem to have developed the
misconception that if you criticize them for what they say you are
trying to shut them up. Of course, sometimes this charge is true, but
most of the time it is not. Similarly, people seem to think they should
be able to say anything they want without consequence, which was NEVER
the intent of the First Amendment. On the issue of freedom of speech,
the First Amendment says (with very few specific exceptions developed by
Supreme Court decisions over the history of the U.S.) that the
government can't tell you what may not say. Period. It says nothing
about your being able to say whatever you want and be free from
criticism for what you say.

Quoted message said:

We've gone from believing that marginalized or oppressed
people should have a voice that isn't shut up by their opponents (good) to
believing that anyone who claims to be marginalized or oppressed should be
able to shut up the voices of anyone who disagrees with them (bad).

And this is the essence of "political correctness."

Quoted message said:

We
seem to have forgotten that having a voice doesn't entitle anyone to have
the last word, and that if in the past the powerful acted that way, merely
turning the tables is acting as if two wrongs made a right.

Indeed.

Quoted message said:

It's an ideology that appears on the surface to be progressive, but is in
reality extremely reactionary. Far from liberating the oppressed, it
merely gives those who would oppress, as well as those who would merely
bamboozle, rhetorical license to do so.

Particularly nowadays, when groups that were formerly marginalized, like
certain progressives and some minorities, suddenly find themselves
having influence. The problem is, political influence is fluid and those
who have it now may not have it tomorrow.

Quoted message said:

Where did it come from? Probably a whole lot of places, some fairly
surprising. One place was likely the recovery movement, where "no
invalidation allowed" rules that were originally intended simply to prevent
AA meetings from turning into slagfests somehow became enshrined as
overarching philosophies. And another may have been the feminist movement
in the early 1980s, which was starting to shift (as it had done in the
nineteenth century) from seeking to politically and socially empower women
to seeking to protect them from a whole array of dangers, in the process
ending up emphasizing people's fragility rather than their power. In some
feminist circles, criticism and argument became "inherently male" modes of
behavior, and being asked to defend one's ideas became a danger to be
protected from. Still another may have been the political Right's
extremely successful co-option of the rhetoric the Left used in the sixties
(at the extreme giving us people like David Duke as a "white civil rights
leader"😉.

All of these sources probably contributed, but a great deal of it comes
from the Baby Boomers, but then I blame them for everything, even
though, I guess technically I am one of them, if barely.

Quoted message said:

But wherever it came from, it's dangerous. It's effectively the same
ideology that asks "if it was bad for the Nazis to be intolerant of the
Jews, why wasn't it just as bad for the Jews to be intolerant of the
Nazis?"

You have to be careful with this example. Its implication, while
essentially correct, is often misapplied to race relations. Because the
Nazis viewed Jews as a race rather than a religion, it is the difference
between an ideology (Naziism, which can be chosen or rejected) versus a
"race" (being Jewish, which one has no choice about because one is born
either Jewish or not Jewish). So in this example, Jews are intolerant of
a chosen ideology dedicated to their destruction, not to another "race."
So far, so good. However, trying to apply this to races and other
disadvantaged groups becomes problematic. I once got into an argument
with a self-proclaimed "anti-fascist," asking him why he considered it
racism when whites proclaimed "white power" and "white pride" and the
superiority of the white race but considered blacks proclaiming "black
power" and "black pride" and the superiority of the black race to be
acceptable. His answer was that the power differential make it OK.
Because whites had more power than blacks, black racism was not racism
at all, but an acceptable reaction to being marginalized. I assume that
means that to him, if blacks were the powerful group, then it would be
OK for whites to proclaim "white power."

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Even though alternative medicine is becoming more "mainstream," some
of its proponents still find it convenient to adopt the pose of
victims of a vast conspiracy by pharmaceutical companies and the
medical profession. It allows them to make excuses for the lack of
evidence that their treatments actually do what they claim.

Yep, the "victim pose" is one of the more disgusting outcomes of the
"criticism is censorship" ideology, except that it doesn't so much flow
from the ideology itself rather than use it as an excuse for a transparent
sales ploy. It's like Ann Coulter, when appearing on national TV to
promote her multi-million-selling books, claiming that she's being
"censored" and "suppressed." Excuse me, people who are truly censored
*don't* have the run of the media; that is what the term *means*. People
who are censored don't make millions of dollars by daring to speak out;
they put their lives at risk by daring to speak out. Why *anyone* would
fail to recognize this promotional ploy for the [censored] it is is beyond
me.

Ann Coulter is the spoiled crybaby of the right. As someone who tends to
lean conservative myself, I find her irritating and embarrassing (as do
most of my friends), particularly when she calls liberals "traitors,"
then whines about how liberals supposedly demonize conservatives.
(Hello! What is it you think you were doing when you labeled essentially
all liberals as "traitors," Ann? Sounds like demonization to me.) She's
just the worst example on the right. Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, etc.,
all say essentially the same thing, claiming suppression by the "liberal
media" and the "liberal power elite," but don't go nearly as far over
the top as Ann Coulter regularly does, making them seem reasonable in
comparison.

Another example of this phenomenon is the Dixie Chicks, when they spoke
out about President Bush and the Iraq War. They had every right to do
that, and they may even have been right. However, they seemed shocked at
the negative reaction to them by many of their fans (as if they didn't
realize that country music fans tend to be more conservative than
average), and on the whole the anti-war crowd seemed to think it was
wrong that they should be penalized by boycotts. Well, they threw
themselves into the political arena. Speech has consequences. If they
can't stand the heat, they shouldn't have gotten in the kitchen. The
same goes for people like Sean Penn, who gets to give interviews about
his political views, then complains when he gets criticized.

Quoted message said:

I think one of the culprits here is the media's tendency to treat anything
and everything as a form of entertainment, turning genuine debate into
something as irrelevant as professional wrestling. Neil Postman's _Amusing
Ourselves to Death_ has some good insights here.

Unfortunately, that's all political debate seems to be these days. On
the right, we have Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Bill
O'Reilly, etc., who are basically entertainers who happen use politics
as their medium. The left has now started to develop counterparts to
them, such as Al Franken and Michael Moore, with others trying to get in
on the action. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not, given that
they do little more than the same old thing with a liberal slant.

--
Orac |"A statement of fact cannot be insolent."
|
|"If you cannot listen to the answers, why do you
| inconvenience me with questions?"

In article <[email hidden]>,

(Jan) said:

Quoted message said:

Subject: Re: Why are we here?
From: Eric Bohlman [email hidden]
Date: 12/6/2003 9:02 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id: <[email hidden]>

Orac <[email hidden]> wrote in
news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Indeed. Just as there is more freedom for doctors to consider and
discuss the use of "alternative" medicine, there seems to me also to
have developed an orthodoxy that says we should not criticize
"alternative" medicine, lest we be "judgmental" or "arrogant."

Here??? Nah, never.

Just as you are never judgmental, eh, Jan? Like your labeling of people
as "liars" or even "evil"?

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Look at the bile and hatred that get heaped upon Barrett and anyone
associated

with Quackwatch.

My word, yes. Pour widdle sweet loving Stephen Barrett is so kind and all.

Compared to Tim Bolen, yes.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Most doctors decide they'd rather not be targeted for

Quoted message said:

such vitriol or even lawsuits at the hands of self-proclaimed (and
self-promoting) "activists" such as Tim Bolen and therefore decide to
remain silent.

LOLOLOL. Such vitriol and *even* lawsuits is unheard of from sweet widdle
Stephen Barrett. Yuper.

Not to the level of "activists" like Tim Bolen.

[Snip]

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Others decide they would rather not risk angering patients by getting too

vocal against alternative medicine.

Why would that anger patients?? You don't mean many patients believe in that
crazy stuff, do ya??

Surely not, why they must be delusional, or is it paraniod?? Narcissistic??
Gullible?? Ignorant??

More self-referential posts, Jan?

[Snip]

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Even though alternative medicine is becoming more "mainstream," some

Quoted message said:

of its proponents still find it convenient to adopt the pose of
victims of a vast conspiracy by pharmaceutical companies and the
medical profession

Forget the convenient and deal with the truth.

Conspiracies, dishonesty and the almighty love of money are the American way.

All too true, which is one reason why quacks flourish.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

It allows them to make excuses for the lack of evidence that their
treatments

actually do what they claim.

Well, no, there are not too many left here who haven't been run off, that do
show lots of evidence, as well as studies proving that alternative did in
fact
save their lives.

Really? Cite "evidence" for alternative medicine that does not rely on
anecdotal or testimonial evidence. It exists out there for a precious
few treatments, but for the most part, altie hucksters prefer
unverifiable anecdotes and "testimonials."

[Snip]

--
Orac |"A statement of fact cannot be insolent."
|
|"If you cannot listen to the answers, why do you
| inconvenience me with questions?"

In article <[email hidden]>,

Anth said:

Quoted message said:

If these "alternative" treatments were as effective against cancer as
claimed by their proponents, it would be trivially easy to prove it in
even a relatively small randomized clinical trial

I disagree http://www.nexusmagazine.com/irt1.html
Where are these randomised trials?
It seems to me that most of the treatments are rail roaded in the politics
and arrogance of the 'elite'

You missed my point. In a clinical trial, you don't need that many
patients to detect large tratment effects, because the effect will be
large enough to be seen over the "noise" of random chance variation. The
smaller the treatment effect, however, the more patients you need in the
trial to detect it, because it will not be detectable over the "noise."
It's a simple matter of statistics and the number needed to achieve the
statistical power to detect an effect. If some of these alternative
remedies that claim to cure "90%" of patients actually did, then it
wouldn't take that many patients in a clinical trial to demonstrate it.

--
Orac |"A statement of fact cannot be insolent."
|
|"If you cannot listen to the answers, why do you
| inconvenience me with questions?"

Anth said:

Quoted message said:

If these "alternative" treatments were as effective against cancer as
claimed by their proponents, it would be trivially easy to prove it in
even a relatively small randomized clinical trial

I disagree http://www.nexusmagazine.com/irt1.html
Where are these randomised trials?
It seems to me that most of the treatments are rail roaded in the politics
and arrogance of the 'elite'

Bad example, Anth, for two reasons.

Reason one is the messenger. I know Nexus well and I even did a check
for accuracy in the printed version once. There was total accuracy in
the page numbering and the year of publication. The rest of the
magazine consisted totally of fabrication and invention. The editor
would have it no other way.

Reason two is the doctor involved. When you say that there is no money
available for research, please be aware that Chachoua has $11 million
dollars that a court stole from Cedars Sinai Hospital and gave to him.
As this amount of money can buy a lot of publicity and research, his
"cure" should be well known and widely used by now.

Another thing. Chachoua says "Australian Medical Board representatives
attempted to chastise me for what they believed were obvious lies and
deception.". There is no such thing as the "Australian Medical Board".
Chachoua knows that, but he also knows that the sort of people who
might believe his lies will not know it and will not bother to check.

--
Peter Bowditch
The Millenium Project http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles
The Green Light http://www.ratbags.com/greenlight
and The New Improved Quintessence of the Loon with added Vitamins and C-Q10 http://www.ratbags.com/loon
To email me use my first name only at ratbags.com

I C
Well with something like Gonzalez the effect from his pilot study was put
down to selection bias.
The NCCAM are currently doing a study of Gonzalez/Keley's
It's a waste of time if you ask me.

I was reading about the asprin trial vs heart attacks and the effect was
0.8% and they said that was significant!
Anth

"Orac" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

Anth said:

Quoted message said:

If these "alternative" treatments were as effective against cancer as
claimed by their proponents, it would be trivially easy to prove it in
even a relatively small randomized clinical trial

I disagree http://www.nexusmagazine.com/irt1.html
Where are these randomised trials?
It seems to me that most of the treatments are rail roaded in the

politics

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

and arrogance of the 'elite'

You missed my point. In a clinical trial, you don't need that many
patients to detect large tratment effects, because the effect will be
large enough to be seen over the "noise" of random chance variation. The
smaller the treatment effect, however, the more patients you need in the
trial to detect it, because it will not be detectable over the "noise."
It's a simple matter of statistics and the number needed to achieve the
statistical power to detect an effect. If some of these alternative
remedies that claim to cure "90%" of patients actually did, then it
wouldn't take that many patients in a clinical trial to demonstrate it.

--
Orac |"A statement of fact cannot be insolent."
|
|"If you cannot listen to the answers, why do you
| inconvenience me with questions?"