US Politics Mega-thread - Page 3599

On April 14 2016 02:01 puerk wrote:

have you ever heard of the concept of a "control"?

On April 14 2016 01:24 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:


To clarify, you mean your right to pick a treatment *for your own disease*, right? Because if *I* want to pick a silly method to treat *your* disease (whether I'm your relative or your friend or your governor or your senator or your president or a complete stranger), then that might be a problem.

On April 14 2016 02:10 SpiritoftheTunA wrote:
u know not every herbal remedy has been clinically evaluated

medicine didnt come from nowhere

that common mass-produced nonfda approved herbal remedies or whatever are likely hoaxes doesnt invalidate the whole idea of the thing

Stephan said his son started to show real improvement thanks to the herbal medications they were giving him right up until the day he went to hospital.

He also had his father come in the night before to give him a blessing.

“We prayed over him the night before,” said Stephan.

He and his wife received a grim prognosis when Ezekiel was examined at the Alberta Children’s Hospital in Calgary. An examination showed the child had undergone seizures and that there was very little brain activity.

“It was fairly bleak and (the doctor) said it was rare that a child would come out of a situation like this. They didn’t completely shatter our hope. She said there was always hope,” Stephan said.

“Even if there was an inkling of hope we were going to hold on to that.”

The Crown says the couple didn’t do enough to make sure Ezekiel received the treatment he required.

The trial in Lethbridge has already heard that the boy had been sick for about 2 1/2 weeks, and his parents gave him natural remedies and homemade smoothies containing hot pepper, ginger root, horseradish and onion.

After being taken to a local facility, Ezekiel was rushed to the Calgary hospital, where he died a week later from bacterial meningitis and a lung infection.

In earlier testimony, a pediatrician said Ezekiel had less than a one per cent chance of surviving by the time he was taken to hospital and was probably already brain dead.

On April 14 2016 02:07 Nyxisto wrote:
the point is your sister is ripping people off, naturopathy isn't a thing

On April 14 2016 01:58 travis wrote:
Good, I am glad he supports alternative medicine. Fuck people who think they know everything, and science doesn't even shut down a lot of what alternative medicine has to offer at the moment. But this is an argument that has been had on this website a thousand times and every time it involves a bunch of people throwing up strawmen and ripping them apart.

Furthermore, what science says doesn't really mean jack shit in the face of results. My sister is a naturopathic doctor and the results she gets from many of her treatments (particularly acupuncture) really make what science says irrelevant, because results are results.

On April 14 2016 02:12 Gorsameth wrote:

Your right, medicine didn't come from nowhere.
Natural remedies have existed for millennia, and then we tested them and those that actually worked became medicine.

On April 14 2016 02:18 Plansix wrote:

A stradivarius violin sounds identical to any well made violin of similar quality, but people still prize them as sounding richer and deep than other violins. It takes a special level of arrogance to pontificate on a treatment that someone else considers valuable.

On April 14 2016 02:17 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:


Results can come from the placebo effect, which can be an issue if the "results" are only temporary/ unreliable/ just masking the underlying problem. Science is 100% about results. And repeatability and falsifiability and other important considerations...



Basically a quote from Tim Minchin's storm...

"By definition, I begin
Alternative Medicine, I continue,
Has either not been proved to work,
Or been proved not to work.
Do you know what they call alternative medicine
That's been proved to work?
Medicine."

On April 14 2016 02:23 Plansix wrote:

That’s right, we got all them. Every single one. Science is perfect and has never, ever made a mistake or declared something to be true when it was not. Especially medical science. Never happened.

On April 14 2016 02:23 Plansix wrote:

That’s right, we got all them. Every single one. Science is perfect and has never, ever made a mistake or declared something to be true when it was not. Especially medical science. Never happened.

On April 14 2016 02:25 Velr wrote:


considering something valuable is not the same as it being working or valuable.


Your Stradivari argument falls flat, because stradivaris work and much of the "nature" medicine stuff just does nothing (not everything probably, or it makes you feel better... But if it would be half as good as it "fans" make it out to be, it would be "medecine"). Sometimes people take it over actual medicine and die for their "evaluation".

On April 14 2016 02:28 oBlade wrote:
There is no financial incentive in our systems to do research about whether eating a certain leaf gives you personally marginally more comfortable bowel movements. And rightly so - it would usually be a waste of professional time and resources. That's why hands-off is good. Is it okay if someone does yoga but not chiropractic or acupuncture? I can eat a bunch of tangerines but not buy some kind of ground extract? As long as people aren't selling poison as a cure, the FDA is serving its purpose.

Obviously nobody likes the Deepak Chopras of the world, and you can't cure cancer with homeopathy (or water as I call it). But beyond that there are huge grey areas and it's not usually public business whether someone cracks their knuckles in an attempt to feel better.

On April 14 2016 02:30 Plansix wrote:

What if they don’t want to take any medical because they don’t want to fight any more? Or the treatment is to harsh and they don’t want to go through it again and seek out alternative treatment?

Once again, it takes a special level of arrogance to dictate how someone else should deal with their crippling disease. The same level of arrogance that leads people dictate who can fuck who and when.