Darwin- slayer of the hopelessly stupid

[Glom]

There's a story of a lovely lady,
Who was diagnosed with a malignant breast tumour.
She refused to have the surgery to remove it,
Instead she took homeopathic drugs and died.

Okay, I didn't originally intend to write that morbid jingle. It just kinda fell out. Anyway, that's basically the story. Apparently she'd heard about the risks from surgery (the MMR effect) and refused it. For ten years, she took homeopathic and other New Age (read as useless and expensive) remedies such as consulting psychic surgeons and distance healers who can do their stuff without physical examination because they can scan you over the phone for £40/h.

One of the remedies she tried was Vita Fons II water (£210/l), which apparently had been "encoded with numinous development" that "achieve their effect by arousing awareness of an inherent perfection. Their use improves the interface between the spirit and the intrinsic divinity." Even better is that if you send them a lock of your hair, for a further £29.50 a month, they'll access your unique vibrations and broadcast numimous energy 24 hours a day. Apparently, when you have breast cancer, washing the wound with salty water topped up Vita Fons II water (£210/l) that is supposed to help.

I have a question. How in the name of numinous divinity does anyone buy this crap?

[MarkB]

I know Glom, I know. What the hell can we do, there just seems to be something in the collective psyche that longs for this kind of stuff. It seems mainstream efforts aren't sexy enough or something.....I just don't know *sigh* We are a strange breed, capable of so much and also capable of denying the obvious. It's just the nature of the beast my friend :(

Mark

[Gillianren]

it's fraud, as far as I'm concerned, and should be prosecuted as such. like what's-his-name with the infomercials who claims he can "cure" all the diseases "the Health Industry" doesn't want you to know are curable. (the worst part is that his infomercial was playing on the channel they'd left the TV on when I went to get my ankle X-rayed. grrrrrrrr.) I'm told the FDA stepped in to make him stop saying "cure," the only word they have any control over, and he didn't. so next step, prison.

[Monique]

it's fraud, as far as I'm concerned, and should be prosecuted as such. like what's-his-name with the infomercials who claims he can "cure" all the diseases "the Health Industry" doesn't want you to know are curable. (the worst part is that his infomercial was playing on the channel they'd left the TV on when I went to get my ankle X-rayed. grrrrrrrr.) I'm told the FDA stepped in to make him stop saying "cure," the only word they have any control over, and he didn't. so next step, prison.
I agree. Is not right to make such claims.

[enginelessjohn]

Here's an article from the Guardian's "Bad Science" correspondant...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/badscience/story/0,12980,1558544,00.html

The point he makes, (as I understand it) is that as doctors have tried to explain what is happening with procedures and drugs etc, the homeopaths have adopted the authoritive knowlegable position (even if lacking in any scientific basis). The homeopaths rely on placebos to "cure" their patients, and informed consent is out the window. And of course placebos don't work on tumours...

I suspect that part of the issue is that because scientific subjects are perceived to be difficult, when people hear a discussion that uses scientific terms they assume they won't understand and then stop listening. The new agey types don't try to explain how things work (like they could :p ) and for a big chunk of humanity, this is actually preferable.

I also post occaisionally on a VW campervan board (surprise!) which unlike this has a lot more people without a scientific background. There are people singing the praises of all manner of new age nonsense. A much ruder word is probably appropriate here but it is a family board... I sometimes try to give a rational voice, but there is only so much you can do.....

Re Mr Goldacre, his columns in the Guardian, are a true joy to read, and I recommend them highly. Especially if you are in the UK and know who Gillian McKeith is.....

So do homeopaths like nice weak cups of tea? :D

Cheers
John

[Maksutov]

The Doctor (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0566809/):


You know, your species has the most amazing capacity for self-deception, matched only by its ingenuity in trying to destroy itself.

[farmerjumperdon]

These are all good points, and explain the behaviors; but I think the short version is:

Lack of information on the topic / Lack of education. If it is willful, then it is the propogation of ignorance - be it intentional or not.

Either way, the predators should be dealt with far more aggressively by the people charged with doing so.

[mickal555]

Grrr

This makes me so angry :evil:

Why must people be so deceptive- they must know that they are essencially killing people by convinving them not to undergo sugery... how horribe.

[gethen]

My husband's 80 year old uncle was recently diagnosed with malignant lymphoma. His son heard about some "doctor" in a small town south of here who could "cure" his disease with "a special diet." So, instead of following a sensible regimen of treatment, he's spending big bucks on the quack. I don't know how he figures that someone with such amazing skill can be working out of a rented storefront, unheard of by the medical community at large, but he does. To be honest, he's old, in poor health otherwise, and his prognosis is probably poor, to say the least, so seeing this guy instead of a real oncologist will probably have no significant effect on his lifespan. But it will leave his wife significantly poorer when he does die and it will most likely deny him the comfort treatment that he ought to have. I'll be talking to my husband's mother this weekend and I intend to tell her just that. I hope she will relay the message to her nephew who convinced his father to try this guy.

[NEOWatcher]

Grrr

This makes me so angry :evil:

Why must people be so deceptive- they must know that they are essencially killing people by convinving them not to undergo sugery... how horribe.

Unfortunately, as long as there are gullible people, there will be those that will take advantage whether legal, moral, immoral or illegal.

Oh; by the way, why not help out superthusnap1 with his Estonian PayPal problem (http://www.bautforum.com/showthread.php?t=30664)? (See what I mean?)

[farmerjumperdon]

My husband's 80 year old uncle was recently diagnosed with malignant lymphoma. His son heard about some "doctor" in a small town south of here who could "cure" his disease with "a special diet." So, instead of following a sensible regimen of treatment, he's spending big bucks on the quack. I don't know how he figures that someone with such amazing skill can be working out of a rented storefront, unheard of by the medical community at large, but he does. To be honest, he's old, in poor health otherwise, and his prognosis is probably poor, to say the least, so seeing this guy instead of a real oncologist will probably have no significant effect on his lifespan. But it will leave his wife significantly poorer when he does die and it will most likely deny him the comfort treatment that he ought to have. I'll be talking to my husband's mother this weekend and I intend to tell her just that. I hope she will relay the message to her nephew who convinced his father to try this guy.

Oh yeah. This irks me more than most predators. I work as a consultant in the health care financing field. I've participated in workgroups that had to deal with these scammers. They prey on the hopes and fears of the most vulnerable people there are - terminally ill patients. The worst I've ever dealt with is a place in the Twin Cities (MN) named Parker-Hughes. I still haven't made a final judgement as to whether they are just incompetent or truly evil. Probably a mix. The guy who runs the place is highly educated and most likely just plain evil. I'd guess most of his help doesn't know any better and are largely just incompetent - like most of us, they trust what the Dr. says. Some of the patients were being seen DAILY as outpatients - an obvious scam to get as much money out of the family as possible before death. There were patients that AVERAGED a visit per day for months on end. A ridiculously intensive regimen by any professional standard of treatment for any cancer.

[publiusr]

Where's John Stossel and Dean Edell when you need them?

[FP]

As a health care professional myself, I have realized that P. T. Barnum was right -- there is a sucker born every minute. I try my best to explain treatment options, consequences of not being treated, pros and cons, and so on. Still some people will insist on "alternative treatments".

Ultimately every mentally competent adult is responsible for her/his heath. If you decide to treat your colon cancer with coffee enemas, your depression with St. John's Wart, your hypercholesterolemia with garlic pills or your pneumaonia with colloidal silver I will try to talk you out of it but I can't stop you.

It is true that many illnesses will clear up with no intervention -- a heathy person's immune system can handle a lot. But I know that if I get lymphoma I wil be at a heme/onc so fast his head will spin.

heme/onc = hematologist/oncologist (or haematologist for our Brit friends)

[Wolverine]

As a health care professional myself, I have realized that P. T. Barnum was right -- there is a sucker born every minute.

Sorry for the OT post, but Barnum actually never uttered that phrase (http://www.historybuff.com/library/refbarnum.html). :)

[Gillianren]

as most of you are no doubt aware, I went to a hippie college up here in Washington State. in many ways, I went to the ultimate hippie college, in fact, as we didn't even have grades.

what we did have was Campus Health. now, they were hampered by the fact that they couldn't, as far as I know, ever afford a real doctor to come in (state school), and most of the employees were Work Study kids. however, on the day I went in to get a piece of glass taken out of my foot, they gave me anesthetic. they gave me a Tetanus shot. they also gave me a tea tree oil soak, in the usual Evergreen meld of modern and alternative medicine.

and, you know, I have absolutely no problem with alternative medicine, provided it's gone through the same process as regular medicine. I like the idea of herbal remedies, but I'd prefer they'd gone through a double blind study or three, just to be sure. and I'm still going to take aspirin instead of making willow bark tea. nice and convenient, that. besides, I don't like tea. I've never found anything that called itself tea that I liked. that, and pills are, at least in theory, subject to quality control so that they're all the same strength, which tea is not.

and, again, I go to doctors when I can afford it. I don't take herbal supplements just because I can't. I believe in a blend, but if you try to convince people less well-informed than I that they don't need all that science to tell them what works, you should go to prison.

[CalabashCorolla]

I think that many alternative medicinal practices give a much-needed boost to the person's will to get better (since they come under the belief that they will), but otherwise don't have a lot of substance to them. One thing that bothers me about the alternative medicine movement is that its proponents seem to share a collective disdain for traditional medicine and, given the various abuses of prescription drugs and overuse of antibiotics, they may have some reason. However, not all traditional practices involve the use of medicines and yet they seem to overlook this.

I once developed chronic knee pain with no history of injury or pre-existing ailments. A co-worker of mine (a licensed accupuncturist) immediately insisted that my problem was "phlegm" in my knees and strongly suggested that I seek an alternative cure to the problem. Instead, I saw a physical therapist who suggested that I avoid hills and stairs, if possible, and try some beneficial exercises. No drugs were involved, since they weren't helping anyway. The knee pain was gone within a few weeks, and I never did figure out where the supposed "phlegm" went :)

[dvb]

These are the people that agencies like the DEA should be going after. At least the drugs that a drug dealer gives you do what you expect them to do.

[Sammy]

Calabash Corolla wrote:

"The knee pain was gone within a few weeks, and I never did figure out where the supposed "phlegm" went "

The answer is easy: "...the knee bone is connected to the nose bone.."

[Demigrog]

I think that many alternative medicinal practices give a much-needed boost to the person's will to get better (since they come under the belief that they will), but otherwise don't have a lot of substance to them.

Alternative medical practitioners benefit from a number of things over traditional medicine.

1. Since the alternative treatment doesn't actually do anything, there are few if any side effects. Real medicine is almost always a trade-off between treating the illness and causing side effects.
2. In real medicine there is always a chance that a treatment will be ineffective, and ethics require doctors to reveal that upfront. Quack healers by definition have no need to reveal the true effectiveness of a treatment-- if its effectiveness were non-zero, it wouldn't be a quack treatment.
3. Quack treatments are cheap (to the practitioner). Thus, the quack healer can offer (apparently) generous payment terms up front. Real doctors are limited by the economic reality of expensive equipment, education, and medicine. Of course, the really skilled quack might eventually cost a lot more than conventional treatments, but the victim doesn’t figure that out until it is too late, if ever.
4. Quack treatments rarely require any effort on the part of the patient. Physical therapy, bah.
5. Quack practitioners are usually small facilities with very friendly staff--interpersonal skills being the key requirement of a con artist, even self deluded ones. A good real medical practice has the same atmosphere, but statistically I doubt most people have access to good medical facilities.

In the end, government agencies are not going to intervene without studies showing that significant harm is being done—that alternative practices are really drawing patients away from proper care in significant numbers. I haven’t seen such a study myself—I’d really like to. Until then, things like homeopathy and acupuncture fall in to the categories of religion and recreation.

A more immediate problem is insurance coverage of alternative procedures. There is definitely no excuse for wasting taxpayer and premium-payer money on quack medicine.

[Sticks]

But a number of our modern medications owe their existance to plants, such as digitalis used to treat heart condition, Feverfew to treat headaches.

Studies also show the benefits of garlic and now Olive Oil (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4204076.stm) is being investigated for theraputic properties.

I can not speak for homeopathy, but some of the home remedies did have a basis in science, and it would be unfair to knock them. Plus they had several years of use. The best one I know is rubbing oneself with a Doc leaf, if one has been stung by stinging nettles, as the doc leaf contains an antihistermine in it.

Now I have my own remedy, which is for coughing.

Take equal amounts of Clear honey and lemon juice in a cup.
Add a liberal dose of ground cinnamon and top up with hot water and drink.

The cinnamon is there, because it tastes nice and also during the 1918 flu epedemic, those dock workers who dealt with imports of Cinnamon were least effective.

That's my excuse to go for a cinnamon doughnut every time ;)

[Demigrog]

But a number of our modern medications owe their existance to plants, such as digitalis used to treat heart condition, Feverfew to treat headaches.

Nobody disputes that folk remedies sometimes are effective. If they can be proven effective by proper scientific testing, then they are an accepted part of conventional medicine, and therefore not quack remedies. However, there may be side effects and interactions, or simply more effective treatments available—so visiting a real doctor is still preferable to folklore.



Now I have my own remedy, which is for coughing.

Take equal amounts of Clear honey and lemon juice in a cup.
Add a liberal dose of ground cinnamon and top up with hot water and drink.

The cinnamon is there, because it tastes nice and also during the 1918 flu epedemic, those dock workers who dealt with imports of Cinnamon were least effective.

That's my excuse to go for a cinnamon doughnut every time ;)

This is a great example of a home remedy that isn’t usually a problem. Coughing isn’t going to kill anybody (usually), and even if it is merely a placebo, the goal is sort-of achieved. It also probably tastes good. :)

However, I wouldn’t let somebody sell this as a cough remedy without proper testing--making a profit on a placebo is crossing the line into unethical quackery. If it was sold as a simple beverage, I also would consider bringing up the alleged cough-suppressant properties unethical without proof.

Your anecdotal evidence of cinnamon dock workers is also a beautiful example of how quack medicines are “proven” effective without actual testing. I can think of many reasons cinnamon dock workers might have been relatively unaffected by the 1918 flu epidemic—statistical flukes from small sample sizes or poorly chosen samples, poorly worded surveys, isolation from infected populations, above-average physical condition, environmental differences, etc—not to mention the possibility that the entire anecdote is made up by someone selling cinnamon flavored cough medicine. However, a quack healer isn’t going to be bothered with scientific investigation (even if they understood how tenuous such anecdotal evidence is in the first place), they’re trying to sell cough medicine. :)

Just to be clear, I’m not implying anything about you, Sticks, or even saying the cinnamon isn’t effective, just using your post as an example of not supporting a folk remedy with the scientific rigor necessary to ethically sell it.

[Sticks]

Well here (http://altmedicine.about.com/od/popularhealthdiets/a/cinnamon.htm?terms=cinnamon) is more stuff about the beneficial properties of Cinnamon. Done with proper clinical trials

And here (http://healthyherbs.about.com/cs/hotherbs/p/profgarlic.htm) is a link to info about garlic :o

Some of these "alternatives" have stood the rigour of modern science. What would be a nice idea would be if a proper doctor could do a book, detailing items in the common larder which are scientifically proven good for health and healing, No Quackery involved.

I suspect somehow, the pharmaceutical companies would not like that one bit. :(

[Gillianren]

I don't know. in the US, at least, Tylenol did a series of commercials explaining proper use of pain meds and saying they'd rather people didn't take them when they didn't need to, even though it meant they sold less pills. besides, even if the pharmaceutical companies did object, well, who cares? contrary to what some (and I name no names but don't mean you) believe, the pharmaceutical companies don't completely control medicine. besides that, well, if garlic, olive oil (mmm, Italian . . .), etc., were proved effective, well, what's to stop pharmaceutical companies' making pills containing garlic, olive oil (I have leftover pizza . . .), etc., of uniform strength? sure, they'd make less money on people making their own remedies, but any new product is more money than they had before.

[hippietrekx]

I really don't have anything intelligent to say that wasn't stated above, but I laughed like mad at the title of this thread. Then when the page finally loaded, I was laughing so hard I was crying from the jingle.

Hmm... Mom's right. I AM rather sick and morbid. Then again I also have a yellow shirt that says "I dislike yellow" on it. My english teacher says I have a wonderful grasp of irony. My science teacher says I'm just twisted. :D

--hippie

[Donnie B.]

I don't know. in the US, at least, Tylenol did a series of commercials explaining proper use of pain meds and saying they'd rather people didn't take them when they didn't need to, even though it meant they sold less pills. besides, even if the pharmaceutical companies did object, well, who cares? contrary to what some (and I name no names but don't mean you) believe, the pharmaceutical companies don't completely control medicine. besides that, well, if garlic, olive oil (mmm, Italian . . .), etc., were proved effective, well, what's to stop pharmaceutical companies' making pills containing garlic, olive oil (I have leftover pizza . . .), etc., of uniform strength? sure, they'd make less money on people making their own remedies, but any new product is more money than they had before.Hey, if people are willing to buy water in fancy packages... garlic and olive oil should be a piece o'cake.

[mickal555]

I really don't have anything intelligent to say that wasn't stated above, but I laughed like mad at the title of this thread. Then when the page finally loaded, I was laughing so hard I was crying from the jingle.

Hmm... Mom's right. I AM rather sick and morbid. Then again I also have a yellow shirt that says "I dislike yellow" on it. My english teacher says I have a wonderful grasp of irony. My science teacher says I'm just twisted. :D

--hippie

ROFL:D

[The Supreme Canuck]

Some of these "alternatives" have stood the rigour of modern science. What would be a nice idea would be if a proper doctor could do a book, detailing items in the common larder which are scientifically proven good for health and healing, No Quackery involved.

I suspect somehow, the pharmaceutical companies would not like that one bit. :(

Look into any book by Dr. Joe Schwartz.

[hippietrekx]

ROFL:D

Wow, I'm glad I gave you such a kick!

--hippie