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What constitutes reliable evidence?

Laelia

Senior Member
Messages
243
Location
UK
You are trying very hard to prove that the 'establishment' view of reliable evidence is wrong

Dear Jonathan,

I am not trying to prove that the 'establishment' view of reliable evidence is wrong. I still don't understand what the 'establishment' view of reliable evidence is. So how can I possibly be trying to prove that it is wrong?

but in doing so you are playing around with word meanings in a way that makes no sense.

I'm not 'playing around with words'. I am trying to understand their meaning in the context that they are used.

Anecdotal information from patients and doctors is always considered 'unreliable' by those in medical research and this is why it is ignored.

So have I misunderstood here Jonathan? Is it the case that you and others believe that anecdotal information from patients and doctors can sometimes provide reliable evidence?
 
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15,786
Is it the case that you and others believe that anecdotal information from patients and doctors can sometimes provide reliable evidence?
Anecdote can be a good starting point. But it still rates far below a well-designed trial. If a well-designed trial contradicts the anecdotes, then the anecdotes are likely wrong, not the trial. If neither contradicted nor supported by trials thus far, anecdotes are a very flimsy basis for treatment.
 
Messages
1,478
Dear Jonathan,

I am not trying to prove that the 'establishment' view of reliable evidence is wrong. I still don't understand what the 'establishment' view of reliable evidence is. So how can I possibly be trying to prove that it is wrong?



I'm not 'playing around with words'. I am trying to understand their meaning in the context that they are used.



So have I misunderstood here Jonathan? Is it the case that you and others believe that anecdotal information from patients and doctors can sometimes provide reliable evidence?
From my perspective @Laelia you have everything you need to understand written in this thread by a number of people who are genuinely trying to help you understand the basics for scientific research and the difference between GPs prescribing stuff. It does come across very strongly that you are twisting words around and disagreeing with every single post or opinion that is made. Perhaps re- read through the thread and ask very specific questions to help you understand if that is genuinely your intention rather than a series of open ended disagreements?. I honestly can't grasp,what's not to understand? This will be my last post here since I feel I've added all I need to and this thread appears to be going around in ever decreasing circles.
 

Jonathan Edwards

"Gibberish"
Messages
5,256
From my perspective @Laelia you have everything you need to understand written in this thread by a number of people who are genuinely trying to help you understand the basics for scientific research and the difference between GPs prescribing stuff. It does come across very strongly that you are twisting words around and disagreeing with every single post or opinion that is made. Perhaps re- read through the thread and ask very specific questions to help you understand if that is genuinely your intention rather than a series of open ended disagreements?. I honestly can't grasp,what's not to understand? This will be my last post here since I feel I've added all I need to and this thread appears to be going around in ever decreasing circles.

Thank you.

Ditto.
 

pamojja

Senior Member
Messages
2,384
Location
Austria
This is another statement made by Dr Hall in the first lecture when she was explaining the reasons why we come to believe that ineffective treatments work:

Your symptoms might have gone away for other reasons that had nothing to do with the treatment. You have no way of knowing if your symptoms might have gone away if you hadn't used any treatment at all.

@pamojja

What would your response be if someone said the above to you?

He could be right, it could have been a temporary improvement already worsening shortly after. However, very unlikely with chronic conditions and continuous remission. There are statistics for the progression of each chronic condition, where improvements with (or despite) anecdotal treatments are very unlikely, like winning the check-pot.

However, it will add one more anecdotal success to the number already existing for that treatment for people interested to hear. And as a beneficiary of what might appear like winning the check-pot - having overcome a by medical standards non-reversible disease - this question in retrospect does seem a bit moot. While having one's life back means everything (and easy in comparison to admit loosing a scientific question instead). ;)
 

Laelia

Senior Member
Messages
243
Location
UK
So have I misunderstood here Jonathan? Is it the case that you and others believe that anecdotal information from patients and doctors can sometimes provide reliable evidence?

I’m quite sure that I haven't misunderstood here and that Jonathan does consider anecdotes from patients and doctors to be unreliable evidence on their own. (Just to clarify, I'm talking here about evidence that can be used to determine treatment efficacy).

Anecdote can be a good starting point. But it still rates far below a well-designed trial. If a well-designed trial contradicts the anecdotes, then the anecdotes are likely wrong, not the trial. If neither contradicted nor supported by trials thus far, anecdotes are a very flimsy basis for treatment.

Hello @Valentijn, thank you for your response :)

I have a different take on this. I agree with you that anecdotes are often a flimsy basis for treatment, however I don't think this is always the case. I believe that some anecdotes might be able to provide us with quite reliable evidence. For this to be the case they would probably need to meet the following criteria:
  1. The diagnosis is certain

  2. The prognosis for the condition is poor and well established

  3. There are marked improvements in functioning (well beyond any previous improvements if the condition is cyclical)

  4. Improvements can be measured objectively
I'm sure @pamojja won't mind me using him as an example here, given that he has shared his story on here. Assuming that his story is true and he is not just the owner of some company selling overpriced supplements (and I trust him that this is not the case ;)), I believe that this is an example of an anecdote that provides us with reliable evidence given that it meets all the above criteria.
 
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@Laelia - No, those things do not make anecdote reliable. Even with completely objective indications of improvement (relevant lab values, etc), you still don't know if someone would have had the same improvement without the treatment. This is why controlled trials are a huge improvement over non-controlled. They account for random improvements, so the amount of improvement (if any) attributed to the treatment can be determined.

And anecdotal reports are much more selective than trial reports. Patients don't run around to a dozen internet forums to announce it every time they try something that didn't help. They also often don't account for other possible factors, etc.
 

Laelia

Senior Member
Messages
243
Location
UK
This is why controlled trials are a huge improvement over non-controlled.

I'm not disputing this of course!

Even with completely objective indications of improvement (relevant lab values, etc), you still don't know if someone would have had the same improvement without the treatment.

This is why I added the second criterion about prognosis. If the prognosis is very poor and it's it's well established that this is the case then I think we can be reasonably confident that they would not have had the same improvement without the treatment.

And anecdotal reports are much more selective than trial reports.

Yes, of course I'm not suggesting that a single anecdote provides reliable evidence that the treatment is effective in other patients. I'm simply suggesting that it provides reliable evidence for efficacy in that patient.

They also often don't account for other possible factors, etc.

I thought I'd covered all bases here but perhaps I missed something?
 

pamojja

Senior Member
Messages
2,384
Location
Austria
I believe that some anecdotes might be able to provide us with quite reliable evidence. For this to be the case they would probably need to meet the following criteria:
  1. The diagnosis is certain

  2. The prognosis for the condition is poor and well established

  3. There are marked improvements in functioning (well beyond any previous improvements if the condition is cyclical)

  4. Improvements can be measured objectively

These are indeed the criteria for anecdotal evidence. Which is more than enough evidence for warranting further studies. But for it to be considered scientifically validated treatment it has to pass the final pinnacle of randomized controlled trials. Too bad that would cost a million and no one would spend that much on non-patentable compounds without any profits.

The advantage of it not being validated by RCTs is, that these non-patentable compounds remain more likely to be widely available over the counter. And not marketed as a 'drug' (the opposite of: “These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.”) with an invariable price-hike, restricted availability through pharmacies and/or prescription only.

I'm sure @pamojja won't mind me using him as an example here, given that he has shared his story on here. Assuming that his story is true and he is not just the owner of some company selling overpriced supplements (and I trust him that this is not the case ;)),

No I don't mind, and don't own or promote any company. Financially it is indeed a burden, but try to get everything at a reasonable price/quality ratio. For example by buying in bulk, wherever possible.

They also often don't account for other possible factors, etc.
I thought I'd covered all bases here but perhaps I missed something?

As I wrote in my introduction as response to Valentijn's remarks:

Compiling random noise will only result in more random noise. I have yet to see a single self-proclaimed "recovery story" that didn't insult my intelligence.

Admittedly, the 9 common factors in verified successful cancer patients - diet, self-directed care, intuition, supplementation, emotional, social, spiritual and mental health - would be insulting to my intelligence too. Through my own experience of defeating a physical disease against all odds and only being able to theorize about which factors have been the most influential, am fine with my humbled intelligence by just having overcome the disability.

So many things we don't know. Might it be the 70 something random factor - in a strange way determined through individual intuition and the combined factors which mustered the most powerful placebo-effect as never before - had some role to play? We simply don't know. And wont ever will know because it can't be determined with the limited tools available to science (like placebo double-controlled trials, which can only determine one factor at a time).

Also how come that most without any of these 9 common factors don't get cancer? - We don't know, nor will.

That's a feat - testing synergistic interventions - modern science simply isn't capable of. Though they use all the time multiple drugs at the same time - (for example with CVD: cholesterol lowering, anti-hypertensive and anti-coagulation..) they as well have never established how all these agents evidenced separately in RCTs, would be effective in any of possible combinations. It's also done without 'reliable' evidence all the time.
 

Knockknock

Senior Member
Messages
212
Hello @Knockknock,

Thank you for your contribution to this thread :)



Exactly! Well said!



I just want to point out that those who are doing the challenging are doing it with the very best of intentions. They are trying to protect us from what they see as bad science, in exactly the same way that they are trying to protect us from the bad science of the PACE trial.
another thing i will like to say, thanks to new tech, epigenetics etc, there is a lot of real evidence of many genetic changes like methyliation path ways, detox and vitamin receptors mutations etc, it may all sense to me that if you supplement , remplace , help this deficiencies it may help our defective mechanism to start working again.
The funny part is that me/cfs as i mentioned before doesn't have the back up the large studies the long and expensive studies to be validated.
whenever there is something promising its turn dow by the GOV's, its clear THEY DONT WANT RESEARCH THEY DONT WANT A REAL UNDESTANDING OF THIS ILLNESS!!!!
over this past year i have read so much, i have seat with my wife and exchange opinion trying to put this puzzle together.

it all make sense to us..even many things that have being dismissed by the US government and their institutions, NIH. CDC. HHS..

Guys there is doctors out there speaking not just Dr Me
But is it an abandonment of the scientific process?Or is it just a case of not having the resources and funds to put their hypotheses through expensiveclinical trials?

It depends. If its an idea that has had no experimental testing or validation before treatment, then "the treatment" could be classed as the experiment and therefore "experimental". Putting aside the ethics of experimenting on humans and all that entails, you could then argue that providing there is a well applied scientific rigour to the design this would still be scientific. If it's just a GP prescribing some stuff and hoping for the best without writing down results in a controlled way then no, this is not science at all.

Obviously one outcome of the treatment if applied scientifically could be that a number of the patients get worse or die due to side effects of whatever treatment is given. This is useful data for the scientific process providing it's designed well and meaningful but not so great for the patient:nervous:. That is why we sometimes experiment first on the bench then on animals before testing on humans. It is dependent upon the risk assessment for the proposed experiment. For a good risk assessment and appropriate experimental design, you need to be an expert in your field and trained in designing experiments. Many of the quacks on the Internet are neither. Just having passed some exams once and having experience of prescribing treatments as a GP or whatever doesn't mean you are a scientist. I don't view GPs as the science end of medicine...the pharmacist is more scientific than the GP.

As far as poor doctors not having enough money to do clinical trials .....I would say if you don't have the cash to splash on a clinical trial, then perhaps don't offer advice or treatments that could be misconstrued as being validated. Always put a disclaimer for what you say? I personally think the medical field needs a kick up,the proverbial with regards to advising their clients of risk. Perhaps they should take a look at some other industries and bring themselves up to date a bit? You get more regulation and advisement of risk in the food, automobile, and finance sectors in this respect. Clients also have more recourse in these fields when things go wrong.

As far as being a human Guinea pig, this isn't something I would want for myself because I have seen what doctors can do by prescribing inappropriate treatment when they don't know what they are doing. If you are carefree and not risk averse then you could convince yourself that going down this road is something of benefit, but I would always advise to weigh up risks.
we are ginea pick pigs already!!
i much reather live a miserable life trying than seating back watching our governments and their institution treating us like if we were a bunch of idiots that didn't know what's going on.
 

wdb

Senior Member
Messages
1,392
Location
London
I believe that some anecdotes might be able to provide us with quite reliable evidence. For this to be the case they would probably need to meet the following criteria:
  1. The diagnosis is certain

  2. The prognosis for the condition is poor and well established

  3. There are marked improvements in functioning (well beyond any previous improvements if the condition is cyclical)

  4. Improvements can be measured objectively

In which case ME/CFS anecdotes can never be reliable as until bio-markers are discovered the diagnosis is never certain, we can't be sure what one of us is suffering with is the same disease as someone else even with the same diagnosis, and the hallmark symptoms (PEM, fatigue,muscle pain,brain fog) are impossible for people to objectively measure in themselves.
 

Laelia

Senior Member
Messages
243
Location
UK
In which case ME/CFS anecdotes can never be reliable as until bio-markers are discovered the diagnosis is never certain, we can't be sure what one of us is suffering with is the same disease as someone else even with the same diagnosis

Couldn't you use that as a reason to say that any research into ME/CFS is unreliable, including even the 'gold standard' double blind controlled trial? I thought we were campaigning for the use of strict criteria met by certain definitions to confirm the diagnosis until a diagnostic biomarker is found?

and the hallmark symptoms (PEM, fatigue,muscle pain,brain fog) are impossible for people to objectively measure in themselves.

I think there have been plenty of ideas from people on here about how to measure these things objectively. I thought that a big part of the criticism of the PACE trial was that they didn't use objective measurements?
 

RogerBlack

Senior Member
Messages
902
and the hallmark symptoms (PEM, fatigue,muscle pain,brain fog) are impossible for people to objectively measure in themselves.

I question this, for a modest (perhaps zero) investment.
Cognitive tests that are available on phones seem useful - reaction speed, n-back testing.
Fatigue - one handed grip strength, single grip, (grip meters are pretty cheap), hearth rate variability seems to also be plausibly measurable.
 

Laelia

Senior Member
Messages
243
Location
UK
But for it to be considered scientifically validated treatment it has to pass the final pinnacle of randomized controlled trials. Too bad that would cost a million and no one would spend that much on non-patentable compounds without any profits.

The PACE trial cost around 5 million pound sterling (and that was for a poorly run study).

This study looked at the cost of 28 Phase III RCTs (all phase III randomised trials funded by the US National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke before Jan 1, 2000):
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16631910

They found the mean cost was US$12 million per RCT.

Does anyone know how much the Fluge and Mella rituximab trials cost?

I don't know how much the cost of clinical trials vary across the board but it I think it's likely they cost a lot more than one million. Which makes it even less likely that non-patentable compounds will be repeatedly put through large scale clinical trials.
 
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Laelia

Senior Member
Messages
243
Location
UK
I believe that some anecdotes might be able to provide us with quite reliable evidence. For this to be the case they would probably need to meet the following criteria:
  1. The diagnosis is certain

  2. The prognosis for the condition is poor and well established

  3. There are marked improvements in functioning (well beyond any previous improvements if the condition is cyclical)

  4. Improvements can be measured objectively

I think that the weak point in ME/CFS is actually the second criterion. I'm not sure whether the prognosis of ME/CFS is well established. Is anyone able to confirm whether or not this is the case?
 
Messages
10,157
@Laelia

Are anecdotes reliable evidence?

Well, in research/science anecdotes can be seen as providing useful information. Researchers use anecdotal evidence to suggest new hypotheses but never use anecdotal evidence as validating evidence.

I think there is a difference between 'evidence' and 'information'. For example, there is a lot of information on Myhill's website which she backs up with a research study or two. When does the information on her website become evidence? I would say that some of the things found on Dr Myhill's are not backed up by reliable evidence because even though she provides a research paper or two, one can find dozens that do not support what she is saying. Along the same lines, if one is providing erroneous information to start with, how can one back it up with reliable evidence.

Maybe a better question is 'What constitutes reliable information'.

When members here on PR post anecdotes on how a supplement works for them, I don't ever see that as evidence of anything, I see it as providing information about the supplement. These anecdotes can be helpful -- some times many members say they are experiencing the same thing, some times nobody experiences the effect and there might be a discussion about that. From these discussions, members often post research that might support what is being discussed or refute what is being discussed.

Remember that the internet is referred to as the 'information highway', not the 'evidence highway'.

There is a lot of information out there on the internet. I think it's good to have at least some system judge the reliability of evidence-- anecdotes being the least. The best evidence probably comes from meta-analyses which examine a number of valid studies on a topic and then mathematically combines the results using accepted statistical methodology.

Randomized controlled clinical trials are carefully planned and they include methodologies that reduce the potential for bias(randomization and blinding). They allow for comparison between intervention and control groups. These studies provide sound evidence of cause and effect if done properly. The problem is many studies out there are not done properly and the results are therefore faulty. Those studies do not provide reliable evidence and some times it takes knowledge of statistics and/or research methodology to figure out if results are good or not. It goes on and on. The PACE study is not reliable evidence because ... been down that road no need to say why.

There are some scientific guidelines/definitions that guides what reliable evidence is. Members are trying to impart this information on the thread. Not sure why you find it necessary to argue every point made though. This information is something that is accepted throughout the scientific community.
 

pamojja

Senior Member
Messages
2,384
Location
Austria
Not sure why you find it necessary to argue every point made though. This information is something that is accepted throughout the scientific community.

Don't know, but maybe she also got across something written by the scientist Ioannidis:

'Evidence-Based' Medicine: A Coin's Flip Worth of Certainty
Posted on:
Friday, November 9th 2012 at 5:00 am
Written By:
Sayer Ji, Founder
This article is copyrighted by GreenMedInfo LLC, 2014
Visit our Re-post guidelines
coin_flip.gif


What if 90% of the peer-reviewed clinical research, the holy grail of the conventional medical system, is exaggerated, or worse, completely false?

A seismic shift is occurring in the field of evidence-based medicine that a rare few are aware of, but which will (and likely already does) affect everyone, as the standard of medical care today largely follows from this model.

The very life's blood of 'evidence-based' medicine -- peer-reviewed and published clinical research results – which legitimizes the entire infrastructure and superstructure upon which conventional medical knowledge and practice is erected, has been revealed as mostly and patently false.

Case in point: in a 2005 essay, "Why Most Published Research Findings are False," and which is the most downloaded document of all time on PLoS, the Public Library of Medicine's peer-reviewed, open access journal, John P. A Ioannidis explains in detail how "It can be proven that most claimed research findings are false." And that "for many current scientific fields, claimed research findings may often be simply accurate measures of the prevailing bias."

The Atlantic published a piece on Ioannidis' work, back in 2010, titled "Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science," well worth reading, and which opened with "Much of what medical researchers conclude in their studies is misleading, exaggerated, or flat-out wrong. So why are doctors - to a striking extent - still drawing upon misinformation in their everyday practice?"

Ioannidis' work revealed that about half of the most highly regarded research findings within "evidence-based" medicine are either wrong, or significantly exaggerated:

[Ioannidis] zoomed in on 49 of the most highly regarded research findings in medicine over the previous 13 years, as judged by the science community's two standard measures: the papers had appeared in the journals most widely cited in research articles, and the 49 articles themselves were the most widely cited articles in these journals.​

...Of the 49 articles, 45 claimed to have uncovered effective interventions. Thirty-four of these claims had been retested, and 14 of these, or 41 percent, had been convincingly shown to be wrong or significantly exaggerated. If between a third and a half of the most acclaimed research in medicine was proving untrustworthy, the scope and impact of the problem were undeniable. That article was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.​

Time magazine wrote about Ioannidis' findings the same year with a piece titled "A Researcher's Claim: 90% of Medical Research is Wrong" -- the title of which speaks resoundingly for itself.

Keep in mind that the 'gold standard' of the multi-trillion dollar conventional, 'evidence-based' medical model is the very research that Ioannidis now says is mostly false. This model, which apparently thrives despite, or even because of, its falsity, largely determines what drugs are used, what surgical procedures employed, or conversely, what treatments can not be used, e.g. vitamins, spices, etc in disease prevention or treatment. It also shields those who practice this dominant and only truly legally-sanctioned form of medicine against the potential calamity of moral, criminal, and financial liabilities it is responsible for– that is, as long as the truth continues to remain buried.

How many folks, for instance, are aware that the Cochrane Database Review on preventing influenza in healthy children with flu vaccines shows that the evidence proving their safety and effectiveness in children under two (the population most susceptible to vaccine-induced injuries) is conspicuously lacking? Why would anyone question the rationality of vaccinating infants and young children against influenza when the CDC and FDA presents it as unequivocally safe and effective? As the review states:

It was surprising to find only one study of inactivated vaccine in children under two years, given current recommendations to vaccinate healthy children from six months of age in the USA, Canada, parts of Europe and Australia. If immunization in children is to be recommended as a public health policy, large-scale studies assessing important outcomes, and directly comparing vaccine types are urgently required.

Or, among the the tens of millions of Americans taking statin drugs for the primary or secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease, who among them realize that there are well over 300 adverse health effects documented in the scientific literature itself associated with the use of this chemical class of medications, including the weakening and damaging of the heart muscle?

Sadly, examples like these may be the rule and not the exception.

Evidence-based medicine (EBM), of course, is founded upon an epistemological power structure arranged hierarchally like a pyramid. The 'quality of evidence' determines whether or not something can be said to be true. On the lowest tier, the 'base' of this pyramid, is the Anecdote, considered worthless, encompassing many folk medical systems employing food and plant medicines and still used by the majority of the word as their primary care system, followed by: Cell Studies > Animal Studies > Human Studies > Clinical Trials > Meta-Analyses and Systematic Reviews of Clinical Trials.



This model assumes, in the characteristically Napoleonic style, that what it does not officially confirm as being true, is not true. Herbs and vitamins, for instance, are almost never considered to be "evidence-based" and credible because they have not run the gauntlet of prerequisite clinical trials required for them to be verified as therapeutic within this model. The fact that our bodies, for instance, require vitamin C in order to be alive, is not evidence enough to support the concept that it may be valuable to take it supplementally at doses beyond the recommended daily value (which may keep you only a few milligrams above starvation/deficiency values).

pyramid_evidence.jpg


The fact is that human clinical trials can cost millions of dollars, and that in order to prove the value of a potential FDA-approved medicine, it must be taken through phase 0, phase I, phase II and phase III clinical trials (which, taken together, cost on average $804 million). The 'gold standard' of evidence-based medicine therefore betrays the aphorism: "those who own the gold make the standard." By principle, therefore, all natural substances, which do not lend themselves to being patented because they do not grant the manufacturer exclusivity, will never attain FDA approval as legitimate medicines.

While the conventional medical system can claim this is because they lack "evidence" for safety and effectiveness (despite the fact that Turmeric, for instance, has thousands of years of use by millions of folks as a food and medicine), the reality is that they only lack "evidence" because they cannot be effectively monetized and controlled as proprietary instruments of medical power.

Ultimately, Ioannadis' findings reflect an inborn and potentially fatal error at the very heart of modern science itself: namely, a tendency towards scientism.

Scientism is the idea that natural science is the most authoritative worldview or aspect of human education, and that it is superior to all other interpretations of life. Furthermore, scientism accepts as real and valid only those things which it can confirm empirically; those things it does not or cannot confirm it is skeptical about, e.g. homeopathy, the existence of the soul, an innate intelligence in the body, or worse, outright denies as unscientific, or "quackery."

For instance, a fundamental assumption of all scientific inquiry is that things are made of "real, hard objects," i.e., the computer I am typing at is a conglomeration of atoms. But wait, quantum mechanics, which peers deeper into the illusion of materiality, revealed that what subtends the illusion of macroscopic things is a subatomic realm better described as comprised of fields of possibility, where particles can be at two places at once, or communicate faster than the speed of light (non-locality), etc, basically violating all the fundamental laws considered inviolable on our everyday level of macroscopic perception. So, in many ways, the deeper you take the scientific investigation, the less firm a footing you have on what really is real, and what you think you know.

Also, scientism – this false sense of certainty in knowing - leads inevitably to medical monotheism: the belief that there is only one true and right way to prevent and treat disease, and that all disbelievers are intrinsically inferior and treated as either uneducated, insane, or as heretics, to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

This is how we arrived at our present day pseudo-scientific medical dictatorship. I say pseudo- because insofar as science means an attempt to discern the truth without bias, it is a human faculty, a yearning of the soul, a constant challenge we must meet each and every moment we try to figure something out. Science is not a "brand," a "possession," an exclusive faculty of a caste of scientific elite, dispensed solely through monolithic institutions. It can not claim to deny anything and everything it does not explicitly confirm without being an organ and instrument of fascism, control, divisiveness and institutionalized and compulsory ignorance and myopia.

Natural medicine, by principle, will never attain legitimacy within the present power structure. The money simply will not flow in the direction of uncovering, or simply confirming its time-tested, multi-culturally confirmed and often obvious power to heal with food and otherwise natural substances and interventions -- that is, beyond the sizable body of preclinical research which we have gone to great lengths to collect and index for you on Greenmedinfo.com.

These limitations, however, are being overcome as we speak. The revelation that the 'evidence-based' monopoly on the truthTM is itself not based on evidence, in perhaps a majority of cases, has world historical implications. Perhaps we would do equally well for ourselves if we went back to our intuition, drawing from ancient dietary and natural medical practices to take back control of our health. For example, asking ourselves "how do I feel?" is no less vital a question than "what is my LDL cholesterol number?" Certainly, in the first case the answer is immediate, and not up to debate. After all, is the evidence of our first-hand experience any less valid than a Merck funded, multi-million dollar drug trial? It is simply a matter of whether we choose to stand firmly in, or loosely give away our power in exchange for the narcotic of blind faith in a conventional medical system, whose credibility as a system designed to discover and apply empirically-confirmed truths (assuming the work of Ioannidis is accurate) already departed long ago.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of GreenMedInfo or its staff.

"© [Friday, November 9th 2012 at 5:00 am] GreenMedInfo LLC. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of GreenMedInfo LLC. Want to learn more from GreenMedInfo? Sign up for the newsletter here http://www.greenmedinfo.com/greenmed/newsletter."

The fact is that human clinical trials can cost millions of dollars, and that in order to prove the value of a potential FDA-approved medicine, it must be taken through phase 0, phase I, phase II and phase III clinical trials (which, taken together, cost on average $804 million). The 'gold standard' of evidence-based medicine therefore betrays the aphorism: "those who own the gold make the standard."

So Laelia, my million or your 12 millions are rather pennies compared to the $804 million it costs to get a phrarmaceutical 'evidence based'!
 

Laelia

Senior Member
Messages
243
Location
UK
There are some scientific guidelines/definitions that guides what reliable evidence is. Members are trying to impart this information on the thread. Not sure why you find it necessary to argue every point made though. This information is something that is accepted throughout the scientific community

Hi @Kina,

So are you saying that I should just accept what the scientific guidelines say are true without thinking it through and trying to understand it for myself? Maybe in that case I should also just accept that the NICE guidelines for the treatment of ME/CFS are also true? ;)

Will probably have more thoughts to add later...