The problem is that you are rejecting how science works. Just because the process is imperfect and can be abused, you seem to be suggesting that non-science is just as good. It isn't.I think this is how good science is supposed to work.
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The problem is that you are rejecting how science works. Just because the process is imperfect and can be abused, you seem to be suggesting that non-science is just as good. It isn't.I think this is how good science is supposed to work.
The problem is that you are rejecting how science works. Just because the process is imperfect and can be abused, you seem to be suggesting that non-science is just as good. It isn't.
As a doctor I wouldn't prescribe placebos and I wouldn't recommend CAM. But if a patient was already using CAM or wanted to try it, I would explain that it is not supported by scientific evidence and when it appears to work it is likely due to a placebo effect but it's probably safe. I would tell the patient 'if you decide to disregard the lack of evidence and try it, either because you believe it might work or just in hope of getting a placebo effect, I have no objections. But please don't discontinue conventional treatment x because it's essential to your health'.
Don't get me wrong, I like Dr Hall and I think she is well meaning when she tries to warn patients about using alternative medicine. However I think she is very misguided in her belief that conventional medicine is always efficacious and safe.
[Edit: I didn't say what I meant to say in my last sentence, poor choice of words! What I meant to say was that Dr Hall is misguided in her belief that conventional medicine is always as efficacious and safe as it's made out to be]
I don't think you can conclude from her comments that she believes conventional medicine is always effacious and safe. I don't know any doctors who believe that. And safe doesn't mean absence of side-effects.
[Edit: I didn't say what I meant to say in my last sentence, poor choice of words! What I meant to say was that Dr Hall is misguided in her belief that conventional medicine is always as efficacious and safe as it's made out to be]
I saw it after I posted so I edited my post to reflect your edit.You're right Kina, of course you can't conclude this, this was a mistake on my part. I did go back to add an edit to the bottom of my post to explain my mistake but perhaps you didn't see that:
The problem is that you are rejecting how science works.
Just because the process is imperfect and can be abused, you seem to be suggesting that non-science is just as good. It isn't.
The safety and effectiveness of complementary medicine exists on a continuum from benign to life threatening.
..it would be my guess that when examined overall, the safety of complementary and alternative medicine lies on average nearer to the benign end of the spectrum.
What constitutes reliable evidence?
There's a lot of incredibly stupid low-risk treatments available. Unless we want to spend decades and our life's savings trying them at all, it's necessary to use some discernment.If there are low-risk treatments available it makes sense to me to try them.
It would be, if you only meant RCTs with science, but turn a blind eye to actual realities. If you believe the meta-analyses, which found that science based medicine could only reduce 5-year mortality with killer no.1+2, CVD and cancer, by only 1-3% - and causing the 3th most preventable death-rate by mistakes - one has to conclude such science blinded by RCTs (designed to test one agent only at a time) at the level of multi-factorial chronic diseases is still in the middle-ages.The problem is that you are rejecting how science works. Just because the process is imperfect and can be abused, you seem to be suggesting that non-science is just as good. It isn't.
There's a lot of incredibly stupid low-risk treatments available. Unless we want to spend decades and our life's savings trying them at all, it's necessary to use some discernment.
Unless we want to spend decades and our life's savings trying them at all, it's necessary to use some discernment.
We don't have to guess, that much we know for sure. After CVD and cancer, medical injuries including adverse pharmaceutical drug reactions rank third for premature deaths. While dying from supplements is still less likely then being hid by lighting, or the inadvertent deaths from accidentally swallowing soap.
I absolutely don't understand the blind faith in conventional medicine, when a hospital stay is actually more riskier than going to war!
While assuming the lack of final RCT-level evidence for traditional medicine (due to lack of funding for not-patentable compounds, but in fact with plenty of in-vitro, animal, and case studies) would equal ineffectiveness and paradoxically, in reality non-existent, terrible harm.
I agree with you Kina that the safety of complementary and alternative medicine exists on a continuum from benign to life threatening. Exactly the same as conventional medicine. However it would be my guess that when examined overall, the safety of complementary and alternative medicine lies on average nearer to the benign end of the spectrum.
I think we need to be a bit careful here. While, I agree with you that supplements are probably much less likely to cause harm than pharmaceutical compounds, they are not without their risks. For example, some vitamins are toxic in high doses as I'm sure you know.
Number - % of all exposures in category - Substance
377 - 0.250 - Sedative/hypnotics/antipsychotics
331 - 0.990 - Opioids
220 - 0.250 - Antidepressants
208 - 0.270 - Acetaminophen in combination
203 - 0.240 - Cardiovascular drugs
188 - 0.410 - Stimulants and street drugs
170 - 0.230 - Alcohols
140 - 0.190 - Acetaminophen only
99 - 0.230 - Anticonvulsants
80 - 0.200 - Fumes/gases/vapors
80 - 0.740 - Cyclic antidepressants
70 - 0.270 - Muscle relaxants
69 - 0.090 - Antihistamines
63 - 0.350 - Aspirin alone
45 - 0.120 - Chemicals
44 - 0.230 - Unknown drug
44 - 0.040 - Other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs
36 - 0.280 - Oral hypoglycemics
28 - 0.200 - Automotive/aircraft/boat products
21 - 0.080 - Miscellaneous drugs
21 - 0.040 - Antihistamine/decongestant, without phenylpropanolamine
20 - 0.050 - Hormones and hormone antagonists
20 - 0.300 - Anticoagulants
16 - 0.150 - Diuretics
...
ZERO - 0.000 - Vitamins and Minerals
Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, February 27, 2007
23 YEARS OF DOCUMENTED VITAMIN SAFETY
(OMNS, Feb 27, 2007) Over a twenty-three year period, vitamins have been connected with the deaths of a total of ten people in the United States. Poison control statistics confirm that more Americans die each year from eating soap than from taking vitamins.
Where are the bodies?
A 23-year review of US poison control center annual reports (1) tells a remarkable and largely ignored story: vitamins are extraordinarily safe.
Annual deaths alleged from vitamins:
2005: zero
2004: two
2003: two
2002: one
2001: zero
2000: zero
1999: zero
1998: zero
1997: zero
1996: zero
1995: zero
1994: zero
1993: one
1992: zero
1991: two
1990: one
1989: zero
1988: zero
1987: one
1986: zero
1985: zero
1984: zero
1983: zero
The zeros are not due to a lack of reporting. The American Association of Poison Control Centers (AAPCC), which maintains the USA’s national database of information from 61 poison control centers, has noted that vitamins are among the 16 most reported substances. Even including intentional and accidental misuse, the number of alleged vitamin fatalities is strikingly low, averaging less than one death per year for more than two decades. In 16 of those 23 years, AAPCC reports that there was not one single death due to vitamins.
These statistics specifically include vitamin A, niacin (B-3), pyridoxine (B-6), other B-complex, C, D, E, "other" vitamin(s), such as vitamin K, and multiple vitamins without iron. Minerals, which are chemically and nutritionally different from vitamins, have an excellent safety record as well, but not quite as good as vitamins. On the average, one or two fatalities per year are typically attributed to iron poisoning from gross overdosing on supplemental iron. Deaths attributed to other supplemental minerals are very rare. Even iron, although not as safe as vitamins, accounts for fewer deaths than do laundry and dishwashing detergents.
http://orthomolecula...mns/index.shtml
But this is not because a hospital stay is as risky as going to war. It's because vastly more UK citizens will be an inpatient in hospital at some point in their lives than the number of UK citizens who will become military personnel in Iraq/Afghanistan.
Please read the small caption in the right corner of that first graph again, to assure yourself that it also includes increase of risk per exposure.
But if you're correct then these statistics are rather worrying!
I've learned something new with this discussion. Despite RCTs being considered the pinnacle of reliable evidence for effectiveness and safety, it can't tell a thing about how applying it on the population level (which standard of care claims would try) - would turn out more riskier than going to war..
Never believe anything without double-checking. If a treatment doesn't work for you, it doesn't work for you. If it works, you'll know too.
Honestly, I hope with all my heard to be proven squarely wrong, for example with my worry for my mother. She in fact has started to experiences many of the side-effects those drugs could bring. But through taking them for that many, many years, she can't other than think that's old age. And just waits for her end. It's so tragic.
After my risk/benefits analysis of available treatments, I googled for the most occurring successful case reports in alternative medicine for my condition, and still started precautionary with a dose much below what's recommended, gradually increasing. Well, after about 1 year, reaching the therapeutic dose, I could walk 1 hour again (up from initially 300-400 meters), 2 hrs the second, and with the 6th year disease-specific pains where now more.
I'm painfully aware that's not as it turns out for many here, and it might not work form me again with ME/CFS.
So sorry to hear this about your mother pamojja. I hope you will be proven wrong too.
I've learned something new with this discussion. Despite RCTs being considered the pinnacle of reliable evidence for effectiveness and safety, it can't tell a thing about how applying it on the population level (which standard of care claims would try) - would turn out more riskier than going to war..
Is this because RCTs can't provide us with reliable data about the risk of adverse pharmaceutical drug reactions?
Never believe anything without double-checking. If a treatment doesn't work for you, it doesn't work for you. If it works, you'll know too.
Are you sure about this? A lot of people seem to be saying that it's not possible to know if a treatment is working for you (because, for example, you might have improved anyway without the treatment)?