…and this is a 
I'm getting a sudden surge of hate mail, and most of it seems to revolve around the Daniel Hauser case. I assume something I wrote has been reposted somewhere frequented by morons.
Anyway, these are a bit weird. Some people really hate chemotherapy, I think, because it has them extremely upset. So upset that I've put some examples below the fold, because they use very naughty language.
Bonnie Howard doesn't use bad language, she just hates Big Pharma, to the point where she even thinks insulin is a conspiracy.
Chemotherapy KILLS
We have epidemics of heart, cancer and diabetes. Ever asked yourself why?
Our destructive medical system is why. Instead of looking to the greatest influence in our lives, what we eat, we run to ignorant "doctors" who are sick themselves and demand they heal us. Absurd. "Doctors were put thru school by Big Pharma. What do you expect, a cure?
It is PROVEN, chemotherapy poison does more harm than good. I have witnessed this fact.
Stay out of my life with your medical mafia, that has taken away choice. This is about choosing the best treatment for my child. Do you somehow think I don't care for my child? You idiot. You're ignorant, swayed by fear and illogical thinking. The barbaric "treatment" for cancer KILLS.
No Daniel will not live. He has been tortured and poisoned.
May we look to the real cause of these degenerative diseases, like the FAKE food pushed on the misled public by those who's goal is profit, not health.
The ADA says sure the diabetic can eat sugar, just shoot up enough drugs. CRIMINAL really and we continue to die cause of stupidity like yours. Get your stupidity away from my choices for my own child. Sounds like torture to me. And you don't look healthy either, just like the "doctors" who spout their profit driven crap.
You have taken part in killing Daniel and the millions of others who look to be treated by those who will NOT address the cause. There is too much money in keeping us sick. Wake up. It is a new day where we want a cure and not just spend money to be killed by stupid "doctors".
Remember more than 100,000 people die from prescription drugs every year, when use properly. Wow what a racket.
America is the sickest nation on earth for what we spend on "sickcare". Get your facts straight. Fear monger.
That was just the warm-up. Get ready for Brianp. He has a novel argument: he just thinks we ought to let everyone with cancer just die. It's natural selection! Kill the weak! Let the strong live! We should only let the strong propagate!
I've highlighted one sentence in his rant, though, that is highly ironic.
fuck you and that cock sucker child molester judge:
I am so sick of this horseshit from your side in this daniel hauser matter, first off it has nothing to do with whether he lives, dies, or anything else, the objective fact of the issue is that there are something on the order of 7800-8000 of these cases and at least 1/4 of those diagnosed die from it, but so what if 8000 people died of anything, its a boil, its a pinprick, over two million people die every year from all sorts of causes, as a matter of fact this countries death rate is too low, every country in europe has a higher death rate including sweden, denmark, norway, finland, germany, england, france, italy and all of eastern europe and russia. The death rate in this country could be easily as much as 50% higher with no ill effects perceived at all. and the birth rate is idiotically high, a higher death rate is a good logical counterbalance to this freakish birth rate. The Hauser matter is all about medical hypocrisy, the family still has the means to buy and pay for insurance which just fattens the wallets and accounts of these pharmocological narco terrorists at that hospital and other places which promote chemotherapy and other medical frauds such as that, when the family runs out of money and they are homeless living under a highway bridges in tents, it'll be danny who and that motherfuck hospital will have never heard of him, and that judge, fuck him , he and that mother fucker oncologist are the loweest of the low, they're lower than pig vommit or radioactive waste, actually radioactive waste can be reprocessed and used in a reactor, they are lower than toxic waste. People have a right to their beliefs however "goofy" they might seem to be,. I hope that fucking judge and that doctor and all of the people forcibly now treating that boy by m edical fraud torture, I hope they all slowly die of cancer and its like endless torture . They are lower than the lowest of the low of a child molester. Cancer is incurable, the so called definition of cure for cancer, is if you're still so called surviving five years after being diagnosed and treated so called successfully and you've passed for what passes for remission, its a false standard. The automotive analogy would be if your starter motor crapped out and you had it replaced and it failed a week later . (the replacement failed a week later). If we simply did nothing and didn't treat cancer at all, the utterly natural process of death would occur, cancer is a perfectly logically natural process. Mankind survived things like the ice age and all of the eons of times before modern civilization because of cancer, cancer and other natural diseases killed the weak and only the strong survived to propogate the species. the whole intellectual theory of curing cancer is idiotic and oxymoronic and won't work either anyhow. I am not a hypocrite, by the way, I would never permit myself to be treated for cancer, at all, of any kind , even if was eminently so called curable or treatable. the fact is I would never know because I would myself never consent to any of the diagnostic tests anyhow, and as for street cred, I have it, I am 49 in just serviceable health with type 2 diabetes, so I have street cred. I also don't believe there is any viable treatment for any form of cancer so called. The fact is that its not cost efficient to treat cancer, its a waste of limited financial monies best used for more logical reasons. this country flushes at least 100 billion down the financial toilet in the name of curing cancer on a annual basis, are we getting 100 billion of objectively certifiable value for all that spending, Of course not, its all a big waste of limited monies we can't afford any longer.
I would really like to introduce Bonnie to Brian.
Comments
Posted by: Kilre | June 25, 2009 8:28 PM
I'm shocked and appalled...and entertained.
Posted by: Angel Kaida | June 25, 2009 8:30 PM
Brianp is really, really angry, but I can't quite parse what his problem is. He thinks the judge is lower than assorted nasty things because he overruled the parents' right to kill their kid, which he seems to agree that they are doing, because humanity will survive without him. Is that right? What a mush of nonsense.
Posted by: Kel | June 25, 2009 8:31 PM
That Bonnie seemed to use every buzzword that drives the alternative medicine movement. It's a pretty fucked-up state of affairs when the industry dedicated to helping people is the focus of so much ire.
But of course, "mummy instincts" mean that uneducated fools know better than trained professionals...
Posted by: JD | June 25, 2009 8:32 PM
Some big pharma hysteria.
Just make sure to post the hate mail from Chief Cloudpiler.
Posted by: Stanton
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June 25, 2009 8:34 PM
Brianp is rabid and incoherent. I can only imagine what he'd be like without his insulin.
Posted by: JD | June 25, 2009 8:36 PM
Bonnie (aka Jenny McCarthy)
I think Autism One is still recruiting.
Posted by: Greg Laden
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June 25, 2009 8:42 PM
Wow.
Well, at least one of them presents a hypothesis that is testable:
No Daniel will not live. He has been tortured and poisoned.
Posted by: tony | June 25, 2009 8:45 PM
I wouldn't introduce them to each other. They might breed.
Posted by: Dustin | June 25, 2009 8:45 PM
This post is just further reinforcement of my hypothesis that stupidity is self-limiting.
If these idiots want to forgo medical treatment, great. More resources for those that both need treatment and want it.
Posted by: Clinto | June 25, 2009 8:46 PM
"The death rate in this country could be easily as much as 50% higher with no ill effects perceived at all. and the birth rate is idiotically high, a higher death rate is a good logical counterbalance to this freakish birth rate."
I'm curious about what Brian's views on abortion sound like.
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
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June 25, 2009 8:46 PM
except that, if we just wait long enough, the loon will be proven right. eventually Daniel will indeed not live. and if that happens 60 years from now? well, it's not like these numbnuts are particularly good at this whole causation and correlation thing anyway.
Posted by: mxh | June 25, 2009 8:47 PM
I got about this far and couldn't go any further:
Funny... no one I know in med school is getting their 250,000 debt paid by Big Pharma.
Posted by: Optimus Primate | June 25, 2009 8:49 PM
What is it with these people and their utter inability to understand the concept of paragraph breaks. Is it that hard, really?
Posted by: Sastra
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June 25, 2009 8:50 PM
People who fight creationism are sometimes rather insulated from what's going on with other forms of pseudoscience.
"Deny the theory of evolution? Hey, you don't see people denying the germ theory of disease, do you? No, they only pick on evolution." Or maybe "creationism will someday be as dead as vitalism. Nobody today accepts vitalism. Physics and chemistry killed it." Or even "the public ought to think that teaching creationism in the public schools is every bit as silly as they think teaching voodoo in medical schools would be."
They do deny the germ theory of disease, they do believe in vitalism, and they do teach various forms of voodoo in medical schools. Who is "they?" A surprising number of otherwise sane, ordinary people, who are sensitive to "other ways of knowing" and view personal experience as the gold standard of truth. And they also know that they are out to get them. There are cures that they don't want you to know about. Out of sheer cussed evil.
Poor PZ. Welcome to the paranoid conspiracy fantasy world of alt med, where, instead of all the scientists perpetrating the lie of evolution, it's all the medical doctors perpetrating the lies of scientific medicine.
Orac will probably come by soon to
laughsympathize. He gets this all the time.At least you don't have to put up with Happeh.
Posted by: AgnosticNews
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June 25, 2009 8:51 PM
Oh, BrianP has "street cred" because he managed to get type 2 diabetes. Therefore, we should look to him as an arbiter of the lives of others in cancer cases.
Yeah, and it's not cost efficient to run a paramedic service, life-support systems, a team of surgeons, and etc. If only people would spend their "limited financial monies" on blowout parties to celebrate their eminent demise. Idiot. We should spend our money on more "logical" items... like fancy cars or perhaps stockpiling canned goods in the event of a nuclear war. Again, idiot.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | June 25, 2009 8:51 PM
Yeah, well, maybe not...but they're getting a lot of free pens!
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM
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June 25, 2009 8:52 PM
She's right. Everyone I know has one. RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!
Posted by: raven | June 25, 2009 8:54 PM
I've seen people refuse cancer treatment before, although not many. They end up known as "former humans".
Age 33, diagnosed with stage 1 breast cancer. Cure rate with treatment is >90%.
After 18 months of woo pseuduoscience treatment that would be embarrassing to even list, she died of metastatic breast cancer. Age 34.
Not that unusual. IF Bonnie and Brian ever come down with a treatable condition they will probably just toss some money at the snake oil people and then die.
Not real common though. The real problem with modern medicince.
Demand for and ability to pay for health care has outrun supply. For every Bonnie and Brian, there are a thousand people who want to live long, healthy lives.
FWIW, Bonnie and Brian might well be schizophrenics. The delusional and paranoid ideation isn't normal. SZ's tend to die young.
Posted by: NewEnglandBob
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June 25, 2009 8:54 PM
Wow, where did this gem of a person come from? Are you sure he or she is even human? Possibly not even mammal.
With thinking like this, I'm sure his/her clan will be self culling.
Posted by: MadScientist | June 25, 2009 8:56 PM
Ah, such a pity they're not trolls on this blog. The ignorance and cruelty are painful. I wonder if Brian is a god-nagger? He seems to think the universe shot out of his ass one day and revolves around him; I haven't met any godless folk with such strange notions. Then again there are some folk who are said to be godless but who really wanted to be the one true god - Hitler and Stalin for example.
Posted by: Julie | June 25, 2009 8:56 PM
My best friend recently passed away after a 5 year battle with cancer. She was 35 and leaves behind a husband and two small children.
Chemotherapy is powerful. That's the point. She had four bouts of chemo through the past five years...and forgive me for being a fan of the medical community, but she lived for 5 whole years until the cancer came back this past January in full force. This time surgery and even chemo did not work, and after the January diagnosis she passed away in May.
But had she never had chemo 5 years ago she would have been dead shortly after her fist diagnosis. She had a very rare cancer, and chemo was the only thing that kept her alive all this time.
Posted by: J. D. Mack | June 25, 2009 8:56 PM
What does this have to do with Michael Jackson?
Posted by: Walter Silveira | June 25, 2009 8:56 PM
FUCK YEAH, DIABETES GIVES YOU STREET CRED.
*cue, thousands of Gangstas casting their nine milliliter handguns aside and picking up a gallon of soda*
Posted by: TheVirginian | June 25, 2009 8:59 PM
These rants are so incoherent that I cannot wade through them to their putrid ends. I just have to comment for reasons given below:
I know several people, including my mother and a former girlfriend (with whom I remained on good terms, as an FYI) who are living years after receiving standard medical treatments for cancer. I had another dear friend who died of cancer, but lived several years longer because treatments prolonged her life. In the "good old days" when people had no medical science, only prayers, my good friend would have missed several years of life with her children and husband, and I would be mourning the XXth anniversary of the deaths of my mother and someone else I cared about.
So while I don't think Big Pharma is always a hero - the industry as a whole has been caught too many times on the wrong side of the ethical line for me to be too trusting - the idea that medicine, the medical industry and doctors are all in some kind of conspiracy ranks with creationism, homeopathy and other filthy garbage as nonsense. Good medicine saves lives or prolongs them. Nonscience in all its forms ("alternative medicine," prayer, etc.) is useless at best, a killer at worst. Good science, ethical medicine and physicians as a group are our only defense - outside of our own bodies' natural (i.e., evolutionarily-developed) defenses - to illness.
And letting superstitious fanatics kill their children - which is nothing less than child sacrifice to gods - is immoral, obscene and, fortunately, illegal, so long as judges don't let the smokescreen of churchs-state separation obscure their ability to see that the welfare of a child, in scientifically justified situations, outweighs the ignorant, bigoted or superstitious beliefs of his/her parents.
The witchdoctors of all voodoo cults (i.e., religions) who promote superstitious ritual (prayer) over medicine or who dilute the value of medicine by claiming that Zeus or Woden or God or Allah or Yahweh or Baal or Ishtar or some other voodoo spirit intervened when doctors went to work are monsters, not to mention hypocrites. After all, if God cures illness, believers would never go to doctors or hospitals. John Paul II would have been taken into St. Peter's when he was shot, not to a hospital. I wish these people really believed what they say. This would be Social Darwinism in its best sense: The sane would get medicine and survive and bear fruit; the superstitious would die without issue and be removed from the gene pool.
Anyone think the clergy will suddenly get a burst of honesty and either admit that they are liars for Jesus (Mohammed, Moses, Ishtar, etc.) or stop getting any treatments based upon atheistic medical science? Please stand up and bear witness.
Whipporwills give lonely calls. Crickets chirp. The wind's soft moan is clearly audible.
I thought so ...
Posted by: Julie | June 25, 2009 8:59 PM
My best friend recently passed away after a 5 year battle with cancer. She was 35 and leaves behind a husband and two small children.
Chemotherapy is powerful. That's the point. She had four bouts of chemo through the past five years...and forgive me for being a fan of the medical community, but she lived for 5 whole years until the cancer came back this past January in full force. This time surgery and even chemo did not work, and after the January diagnosis she passed away in May.
But had she never had chemo 5 years ago she would have been dead shortly after her fist diagnosis. She had a very rare cancer, and chemo was the only thing that kept her alive all this time.
Posted by: Nessa | June 25, 2009 9:00 PM
@ Clinto #10
I imagine that he would be all for abortion, considering how appalled he was with the birthrate.
Posted by: Eukaryote | June 25, 2009 9:03 PM
Wait... Brianp states that European countries have a higher "death rate?"
I think the entire world has the same "death rate..." 100%
Posted by: Steven Alleyn | June 25, 2009 9:04 PM
Please! Morons who send PZ email! For the love of cheese! PARAGRAPH! Just put in a line break when you've done with the idea you were developing and move on to the next one...
It isn't that difficult!
Posted by: Sky
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June 25, 2009 9:06 PM
This sounds a lot like the Scientologists. I have a family member who's a Scientologist, and he's had this sort of twisted, deranged paranoia drilled into him by that organization. Basically, medical science can't be trusted because it's being funded by the big drug companies; the media won't give you the truth because it's being funded by the big drug companies; the U.S. government can't be relied upon to act in good faith because it's being funded by the big drug companies; the experts in the field cannot be relied upon because they're being paid by the big drug companies.
All it takes to justify the most unbelievable and batshit pseudoscience is just to make the claim, "Well, the reason there's no EVIDENCE that this is effective is because the pharmaceutical companies are suppressing it!." Makes me want to puke.
Posted by: Mark | June 25, 2009 9:06 PM
Actually, Bonnie sounds a lot like Bill Maher on his show lately. Hard to believe that he can be right on religion yet so wrong on alt med.
Posted by: Lifer | June 25, 2009 9:07 PM
I agree with the comments about Big Pharma. Lots of companies have a say in what doctors learn in school, their schools and programs receive funding from them, they routinely show up and talk about new drugs.
They need to address the root causes of diseases and processed food and inactive lifestyles are definitely known causes of cancer. Studies do show that whole food, plant-based eating styles discourage and even reverse disease.
I don't think vitamin water and prayer are going to do much. I'm often surprised by people that assume that the FDA and corporations have the consumers best interest and health in mind.
Some people need to re-examine the Hippocratic Oath, study and implement the latest nutritional science in their lives.
Posted by: mk | June 25, 2009 9:08 PM
Two people who are in desperate need of some Tim Minchin!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujUQn0HhGEk
Posted by: Don | June 25, 2009 9:08 PM
No mention of either mutation or natural selection. PZ, you may be reaching out to a new constituency.
Posted by: Lifer | June 25, 2009 9:09 PM
I agree with the comments about Big Pharma. Lots of companies have a say in what doctors learn in school, their schools and programs receive funding from them, they routinely show up and talk about new drugs.
They need to address the root causes of diseases and processed food and inactive lifestyles are definitely known causes of cancer. Studies do show that whole food, plant-based eating styles discourage and even reverse disease.
I don't think vitamin water and prayer are going to do much. I'm often surprised by people that assume that the FDA and corporations have the consumers best interest and health in mind.
Some people need to re-examine the Hippocratic Oath, study and implement the latest nutritional science in their lives.
Posted by: Steven Alleyn | June 25, 2009 9:10 PM
The screwed up thing is that Big Pharma OWNS all the major CAM companies and they make more money from it than legitimate drugs because they don't have to do any testing.
Posted by: mxh | June 25, 2009 9:11 PM
@Lifer,
Where do you get this from? I've been (in one way or another) a med student for 6 years now and I haven't seen a single pen by a pharmaceutical company, let alone attended talks or been part of a program that's received funding from them. Yeah pharma is trying hard to influence doctors, but most med schools are pretty good at keeping them away from students.
Posted by: Sky
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June 25, 2009 9:13 PM
And by the way, "Bonnie." My friend had aggressive breast cancer which was diagnosed while she was pregnant. She had to undergo chemo, while pregnant, and because of this she is in full remission having given birth to a healthy and unharmed baby (this was almost a decade ago). If people listened to you, my friend would be dead now and her daughter would be motherless. Fuck you.
Posted by: AZSkeptic | June 25, 2009 9:14 PM
How does having type 2 diabetes with "serviceable health" (whatever the fuck that is) give you "street cred" on the topic of cancer treatments and/or legal protection of children from their moronic parents?
Bri--sounds you need a little med adjustment. And I have the street cred to make that opinion. I've just been to my general practice physician for a vasectomy referral. Street cred THAT, bitches!
Posted by: Rorschach | June 25, 2009 9:15 PM
*Dips a toe into cesspool of insanity*
No,thanks.These people are way too far gone.
Posted by: Holbach
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June 25, 2009 9:15 PM
A cancerous moron who will most definitely choose prayer over chemotheraphy if his life is at stake. The chemo will navigate to the cancerous areas and perhaps eradicate it, whereas the prayers will always stay in his head and drive him insane, thereby rendering him brain dead before he is body dead. His god is in his head, but will be of no avail.
Posted by: Edd | June 25, 2009 9:20 PM
I'm diabetic, and one of my closest friends has come out in the clear for a cancer thanks to chemotherapy. If I'd not had the benefits of medical science I'd never have met her, and if she'd not had the benefits of medical science she would have been taken from me and my other friends far too prematurely.
I can't feel anger about this post, just the deepest pity.
Posted by: mk | June 25, 2009 9:24 PM
There... fixed that for ya.
Posted by: Whiskeyjack
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June 25, 2009 9:25 PM
Y'know, it's almost as thought people think that if they can just work out the proper system, they could live forever. (In fact, they seem to think they're entitled to live forever.) Kind of like those sad cases who think they can figure out a system for slot machines.
Posted by: Rey Fox | June 25, 2009 9:26 PM
"We have epidemics of heart, cancer and diabetes."
Nothing I can do, total epidemic of the heart.
(Hey, she's named Bonnie and everything)
Posted by: Platypus
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June 25, 2009 9:31 PM
Some background so you know a bit about me: I'm trained in engineering working as a scientist in the field of medicine in Australia and I've followed this blog for about 6 months. I finally got a log in, hi everyone! *wave*
I might just be lucky, but I seem to run up against this kind of stupidity on a daily basis. I just can't get my head around the fact that people really believe this crap, even when you patiently explain again and again. It's like a really dumb idea got in their head first, and now it's kicking all the other rational ones out and only letting it's friends in.
Posted by: Nick Husher | June 25, 2009 9:31 PM
The thing that Bonnie has going for her over Brian is that she does have one important, salient point: the food we eat makes us sick. Asia used to have the lowest rates of lifestyle-related diseases (some of which are certain kinds of cancer), but that rate has increased directly proportionally to how much they ate like westerners. Rather than treating chronic lifestyle-related diseases like they strike at random, we should be attempting to directly correlate behavior to frequency of disease.
Just once, I'd like to hear an oncologist answer the question "why did I get cancer" with, "because you eat bad food and drink too much, dumbass."
Then again, eating well doesn't treat the disease, it only prevents it. If I were diagnosed with cancer tomorrow, you can be sure I'd be nuking it with chemicals and radiation ASAP.
Posted by: Barry | June 25, 2009 9:35 PM
The rant by Brian sounded rather familiar to me in a strange sort of way. That is to say, take out the nasty words, and the obviously modern subjects, and just look at some of the basic philosophy, ------and. Now I remember! A 1922 eugenics publication called The New Decalogue of Science, by Albert Wiggam. It’s on line free somewhere (most likely at the Cold Spring Harbor site). I’ll have to reread it and make a comparison. Let them all die says Wiggam, it’s all good for us.
Posted by: Susannah | June 25, 2009 9:37 PM
What is "so called surviving"?
Posted by: Sonja | June 25, 2009 9:39 PM
Thank you Kevin Trudeau! He took the cult-like alternative medicine/natural-pathy school of thought from a minority population, mostly in the western United States and nationally among the political left (I know -- these people turned up at every democratic party convention) and he brought this fallacious fear-mongering to a group of people who are already vulnerable to scam artists. These are the uneducated right-wing, suburban or rural populations. Trudeau did this through his late-night infomercials.
I was taken aback when my conservative Republican brother who lives in an outer-ring suburb started spouting on about Big Pharma and organic vegan diets. A friend had given him a copy of the Trudeau book and, lacking skepticism and critical thinking skills, he bought it hook, line and sinker.
Posted by: Kel | June 25, 2009 9:39 PM
Though I shouldn't be, I'm still surprised that people think that the medical industry is US-centric. There are dozens of other countries around the world where there's 1st class medicinal services, to say they are all in the pockets of big pharma would be grossly innacurate. Yet many treatments are practiced throughout the world, what does this say about the treatments themselves?And what about the medical journals who publish this stuff too? Don't they have reputations to uphold, that research scientists have a sense of duty in reporting what's accurate? And if findings cannot be replicated, why wouldn't medical researchers seek glory by exposing shoddy techniques?
By no means is the system perfect, but come on!
Posted by: Rev. Barky | June 25, 2009 9:49 PM
These posters do have a point - however it is a bit extreme.
My last several visits to the doctor have been lousy.
I took took much Naproxin and had an allergic reaction - the doctor told me I had a blood clot in my lung an I needed the emergency room.
I had a weird cyst on my ass and the doc said he was certain it was a hemorrhoid. He was wrong (still dont know what it was but it went away never to return).
I wanted a physical and the doc rubbed her boobs and her crotch on me. I'm going back though next time I feel like crap.
I went to be treated for anxiety and the doc gave me drugs that made me feel like a zombie - he never mentioned that exercise would a good alternative.
Am I ranting too much here?
Posted by: Rev. Barky | June 25, 2009 9:52 PM
These posters do have a point - however it is a bit extreme.
My last several visits to the doctor have been lousy.
I took took much Naproxin and had an allergic reaction - the doctor told me I had a blood clot in my lung an I needed the emergency room.
I had a weird cyst on my ass and the doc said he was certain it was a hemorrhoid. He was wrong (still dont know what it was but it went away never to return).
I wanted a physical and the doc rubbed her boobs and her crotch on me. I'm going back though next time I feel like crap.
I went to be treated for anxiety and the doc gave me drugs that made me feel like a zombie - he never mentioned that exercise would a good alternative.
Am I ranting too much here?
Posted by: defective robot | June 25, 2009 9:52 PM
Does Brian also credit cancer with effectively doubling man's life expectancy over the past 100 years, or does he limit his praise only it's having allowed mankind to have survived the ice age?
Posted by: defective robot | June 25, 2009 9:55 PM
Umm...can I try this again with better grammar?
Does Brian also credit cancer with effectively doubling man's life expectancy over the past 100 years, or does he limit his praise only to its having allowed mankind to survive the ice age?
Posted by: flim flam | June 25, 2009 9:59 PM
yeah nick, about time oncologists sat those kids with cancer down and gave them a serve about how they bought it on themselves with all that candy and soda. Hey baldy kid! lay off of the chippies!.
Eating well, yoga, eating overpriced organic tofu etc etc will not prevent you getting cancer.
Diet and lifestyle eg drinking, smoking are risk factors in the development of some cancers, but contrary to the commonly held belief, all the brown rice and sneering at fatties in the world will not stop you from getting cancer. It's just more alt-med victim blaming.
Non smokers get lung cancer ( rare but it happens) thin people get bowel cancer, athletes get breast cancer. Vegetarians get cancer, total woo woo vegan vitamin nuts get cancer too.
I know it suits some peoples world view to believe that cancer only happens to nasty unhealthy people who chow down on KFC all day with a cigarette in one hand and a beer in the other, but its not true. It's just more magical thinking.
Posted by: Y. Esme | June 25, 2009 10:00 PM
Man. I don't even know where to begin... Uh, on the bright side, at least Bonnie knows that processed foods aren't good for you? And Brian's email was just hilarious to read?
Posted by: Alan Kellogg | June 25, 2009 10:02 PM
Type 2 Diabetes myself, kept under control through oral medication (Metformin). It's weight related, and my weight is connected to my Clinical Depression and Aspergers. I lost weight my diabetes would go away, but the depression and Aspergers affect my behavior, and that keeps my weight up. Were it not for Big Pharma I'd be dead in all probability.
Like others here I owe my life to science based medicine, and people like Bonnie threaten my life with their insanity and stupidity. But try to reach them with reason and evidence? Sooner reach a creationist with information on fossil formation in mudstones and shales.
Keep up the good fight against woo flingers, lives depend on it.
Posted by: MikeR | June 25, 2009 10:06 PM
I was thinking free pens shaped like syringes and some sweet notepads where you only have space to write on half a page...Where was I when the good swag was passed out?Posted by: recovering catholic | June 25, 2009 10:10 PM
Bonnie says you don't look healthy, PZ--I've seen you twice in person and you look pretty darn healthy to me--cute as a bug with those chubby rosy cheeks.
Posted by: ckerst | June 25, 2009 10:12 PM
Sooner or later everyone dies so why bother with health care at all? (snark)
Posted by: ERV | June 25, 2009 10:15 PM
@ mxh, #36
They get information about Big Pharmas infiltration of med schools the same place they go get info about vaccines, HIV/AIDS, GMO organisms, 911, global warming...
We know where they get this information, common.
Posted by: josh | June 25, 2009 10:19 PM
Wait, so the death rate in the US isn't 100%?
Posted by: Otto | June 25, 2009 10:22 PM
First, I wish Daniel a very successful treatment.
However, there seem to be legitimate alternatives to chemo therapy:
http://www.burzynskiclinic.com/
Apparently there are FDA trials in progress.
I have no idea how that applies to Daniels case.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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June 25, 2009 10:25 PM
Yep, just like every other country. It doesn't matter your diet or how much exercise you get. Life is a death sentence.Posted by: libhomo | June 25, 2009 10:26 PM
All bizarreness aside, people should be careful about chemotherapy. Effectiveness is highly variable, depending on the cancer. The side effects are often horrifying.
A lot of what is passed off as medical advice has value judgements embedded within. Patients and families need to do their own research so the decisions aren't made according to the priorities of strangers.
Posted by: Rorschach | June 25, 2009 10:30 PM
lying misinformed wooist @ 63,
from that site you linked:
and
Groundbreaking, non-surgical, non- and low-toxic alternative cancer treatment regimens, some available within clinical trials
Yup,that convinces me.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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June 25, 2009 10:33 PM
They do need to look at the facts. But many people read the first 10 or so hits their search engine hits. If it is to sites that say don't do chemo, even if the "cure" rate is 80-90%, the site also has an agenda. Most people don't have a good bullshit filter, and need someone to interpret the information for them.Posted by: Benjamin Franklin | June 25, 2009 10:37 PM
I am a Medicine Man and and Elder of the Sawatdafuk Band. Send these poor, sick emailers to me so I can heal them.
Posted by: Kobra | June 25, 2009 10:37 PM
I have to be honest here: I did not read the second email. Not so much as a single paragraph break in the whole fucking thing? I'll pass.
Posted by: Wendy Cheang | June 25, 2009 10:43 PM
Brianp you clearly were diagnosed with Type II Diabetes by a doctor you stupid hypocrite.
And people read the news. Daniel's tumor is shrinking. A couple of treatments of chemo and he's getting better. I mean come on. The mother's tried everything and the cancer didn't go down until he took chemo. Those courts saved his life.
Even the parents are indirectly acknowledging that chemo is working by willing to comply with the court's treatment.
Explain that Bonnie.
Now I read that the family has trouble paying for chemotherapy because even with insurance they have to pay a great deal. That I find a legitimate complaint. Their chemo would take 6 months and it is expensive. But still why are you gambling your child's life to save money?
Anyway it's all the more reason to support Obama's healthcare plan
Posted by: Katkinkate | June 25, 2009 10:44 PM
Posted by: Sven DiMilo @ 16 "Doctors were put thru school by Big Pharma. What do you expect, a cure? Funny... no one I know in med school is getting their 250,000 debt paid by Big Pharma. Yeah, well, maybe not...but they're getting a lot of free pens!"
And the free pads of note paper and post-it-notes with advertising all over them. And at Christmas a coffee mug with your first name stenciled on the side opposite the big advertisement for their latest expensive drug.
Posted by: Enkidu | June 25, 2009 10:46 PM
I think some people are off their "big Pharma" meds and need to go back on them.
Posted by: strangebrew | June 25, 2009 10:47 PM
The down side from these morons is that if the kid ends up dying of cancer these bozos will claim vindication.
Lets hope the kid makes it...a few do although many don't..
Chemo offers no guarantees but probably a slightly better chance then no intervention at all...and is by far streets ahead of prayer or herbal crap!
Posted by: Caine | June 25, 2009 10:50 PM
Woah. No open minds there. I have a friend who is about to undergo chemo (breast cancer), and I am so thankful her prognosis at this point looks excellent. She's a world class tango dancer, a cyclist, and has always watched what she eats. Cancer is no respecter of persons, it can strike anyone.
It saddens me that people can think in such a damaging way, that they can be so hateful and happy soaking in ignorance.
Posted by: raven | June 25, 2009 10:51 PM
Pure woo bullshit. Drugs are tested for efficacy in 3 phase trials. Phase 3 usually has a few hundred ot more likely a few thousand patients, randomized, double blind, placebo or best available therapy controlled. Then it goes through the meatgrinder at the FDA.
You end up with statistics and p values. Cold, hard numbers. This whole process can easily take 10 years, involves dozens of professionals and can cost 300 million to 1 billion bucks. For one drug.
"A lot of what is passed off as medical advice has value judgements embedded within." A lot of what is passed off as medical advice on the internet is by people who haven't the slightest idea what they are talking about. Just plain ignorance.
Posted by: Peter | June 25, 2009 10:51 PM
Burzynski appears to be just another quack with dubious qualifications and even more dubious treatments.
Posted by: justinaquino | June 25, 2009 10:53 PM
I wonder if religious figures get any hate mail? I think a truer test of conviction is the amount attacks suffer every day (even the thought of having to live with so many people hating with such infernal intensity) :P These "haters" seem to be racking up to be mental "battle scars" to count and display :lol:
Posted by: Cuttlefish, OM | June 25, 2009 10:56 PM
Since medicine has saved my son, my sister, mom, and dad,
I'll tend to have a different view than what these people had.
They want to leave their loved ones' health, essentially, to luck--
Have fun with death, but as for me, you two can go and fuck
... er .... yourselves.
Posted by: Martín Pereyra | June 25, 2009 10:59 PM
@28:
Exactly: these people have no ideas to develop. They just type incoherent rants until their keyboards break, they fall asleep, the nurse sedates them, or something alike.
Posted by: cdx | June 25, 2009 11:02 PM
For some reason Brianp is not upset at the enormous amount of money we spend on treating Type 2 diabetes. I can't figure out why.
Posted by: Dr. P | June 25, 2009 11:02 PM
@ 34
Funny, I don't remember ever hearing a "Big Pharma" lecture in med school; I graduated some 16 years ago, and if anything they've gotten more strict on gifts and donations.Posted by: raven | June 25, 2009 11:05 PM
Well the Bonnie's and Brian's haven't showed up yet but some of their distant cousins have.
One salient fact. A century ago the US lifespan was 47 years. Today it is 30 years longer at 77. Few remember what life was like before antibiotics and vaccines were developed. Blame modern medicine for those 3 extra decades.
Before antibiotics, the treatment for a deep soft tissue wound with septicemia in a limb was simple. Amputate it and hope it works. These days the treatment is $10 worth of antibiotics and it virtually always works. The good old days weren't really all that great.
Posted by: DrAce | June 25, 2009 11:06 PM
How does he know he has type II diabetes if he hasn't had any tests?
Posted by: RC | June 25, 2009 11:08 PM
I agree that Brian and Bonnie need a bit of Tim Minchin.
I know when you hear "9 minute beat poem", you don't think it will be anti-homeopath, funny, sarcastic, or inspirational to atheists, but there you go.
www.wimp.com/stormpoem
Totally recommended! Our entire biology department spent the day smiling!
Posted by: Azkyroth | June 25, 2009 11:08 PM
Someone hand this jackass a cyanide capsule and tell him to put his money where his mouth is.
Posted by: Platypus
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June 25, 2009 11:12 PM
Just to stir the pot and stray off the topic of bashing idiots, here's a quote from Ian Fraser on the state of Big Pharma:
"...in the area which I know which is health research, the system is actually broken. Big Pharma acknowledges that the business model they're working on is doomed to failure. The concept that they'll be yet one more blockbuster drug which is going to solve a really major health problem out of which they will make enough money to justify the huge infrastructure that they have no longer is sustainable, and the measure of that at one level is the merger between pharmaceutical companies to try and keep the whole system going. But each of them now acknowledge that they're going to have to generate a different sort of product if they're going to make any money at all and that's going to be a small niche market, high value product which we're not going to be able to afford because they're going to be high value and high cost in order to cover the cost of development."
There are problems with Big Pharma.
ref: http://tinyurl.com/mm6rcd
Posted by: Paco | June 25, 2009 11:14 PM
Three words: Brian, guest blogger!
Posted by: genesgalore | June 25, 2009 11:15 PM
chemo is essentially barbaric. but when it's all you got, it's all you got. kinda like mercury and syphillus awhile ago.
Posted by: Russell | June 25, 2009 11:18 PM
The sad thing is that there is no end to the loonies, no bounds to their rage, and no rhyme to their unreason. Just when you think that there are no nuts worse than the creationists, you move to some other area to discover the nuts are just as plentiful and crunchy. Just a slightly different flavor.
Posted by: Skemono | June 25, 2009 11:18 PM
Ah, yes. The original article is available here at the Eugenics Archive, but he wrote a lengthier book by the same name. I think the whole book is on-line from Archive.org.
And I don't recall Wiggam said "Let them all die." He wanted the rich people to have more babies. The poor people were the ones who ought to die.
Posted by: Sky
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June 25, 2009 11:19 PM
That "Bonnie" character has obviously never had a friend or loved one stricken with cancer who was saved by chemotherapy. She whines that chemo is poisonous. Yes Bonnie, this is technically true. It poisons you and makes you feel like shit, but it also poisons and eradicates cancer cells. It's a very unpleasant experience but it WORKS.
Isaac Asimov once made a statement to the effect that one should inspect every piece of pseudoscience one encounters, for one will inevitably find that it is merely a thumb to suck or a skirt to hold. This is so true. No one would even bother with the intellectual backflips and idiotic rationalizations for such bunk as homeopathy and other "alternative" medicines if they didn't so desperately wish that such pleasant alternatives actually worked.
Posted by: mocular
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June 25, 2009 11:20 PM
Man oh man, I met one of those cancer deniers (like Brian) last weekend. Adamantly told me that cancer is caused by those who have it because of their negative mental attitudes. When I asked her why mice get cancer she just glared at me and started crying - her husband came to the rescue and told me she, "REALLY believed what she was saying."
Uncharacteristically, I was speechless .
Posted by: Bjørn Østman | June 25, 2009 11:20 PM
I'm too tired to read all the comments, so just in case nobody has pointed it out: What's the big difference to Brianp between treating cancer and diabetes? Shouldn't we let him die without insulin the same as he proposes for people with cancer?
Moron.
Posted by: Monado | June 25, 2009 11:29 PM
Of course, the irony is that people are getting heart attacks and cancer and other degenerative diseases of ageing because modern medicine is keeping them alive long enough to get old.
Posted by: Orac
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June 25, 2009 11:29 PM
Why is it that you get the hate mail when I've written far more extensively about the Danny Hauser case and I didn't get any. It's not fair! True, I did get lots of loony comments, but no hate mail.
Oh, well...
Posted by: littlejohn | June 25, 2009 11:34 PM
Big Pharma didn't put any of my med school friends through school. Huge loans did.
Beyond that, I guess I'm getting really cynical, but if these asshats really want to think modern medicine can't help them, then okey dokey. Die, you dumbasses.
It's natural selection, even if you don't believe in it. Of course, it doesn't matter what you believe. You and your spawn will soon be dead.
I'm tired of caring. Bubb-bye.
Posted by: Brian C Posey | June 25, 2009 11:38 PM
"over two million people die every year from all sorts of causes"
I like how this is technically true yet still stupid.
Posted by: Monado | June 25, 2009 11:38 PM
Steven [#29], paragraph breaks would interfere with their stream of consciousness. They're on a roll!
Posted by: Monkeyman8 | June 25, 2009 11:42 PM
I'm inclined to say just fuck 'em, let them practice what ever lunacy they wish, and let the idiots die out. Then I remember that I'm not Christian.
Posted by: Alexis | June 25, 2009 11:59 PM
While chemotherapy isn't exactly pleasant, and most pharmaceuticals are truly terrible for you, it's a choice you have to make yourself and it's truly terrible to choose non-treatment in a life-or-death situation regarding your child. While I've been frustrated with "traditional" doctors sometimes (seriously, I come to you for a problem and instead of doing the yearly pelvic exam I had scheduled and in the meantine diagnosing my problem, you hand me a pamphlet? What the hell? I searched out a naturopathy clinic, where they do crazy stuff like actually do an exam to diagnose the problem) I would definitely go with my best shot for surviving cancer.
Posted by: Andersson
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June 26, 2009 12:01 AM
"as a matter of fact this countries death rate is too low"
So your death rate is less than 100%? I just have to ask: Are there vampires in america?
Posted by: AJ Milne | June 26, 2009 12:03 AM
My take on this is: every time I say 'that's the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard', someone else comes along and, incredibly enough, manages to top it...
(/Frequently within the hour.)
Posted by: Alexis | June 26, 2009 12:03 AM
While chemotherapy isn't exactly pleasant, and most pharmaceuticals are truly terrible for you, it's a choice you have to make yourself and it's truly terrible to choose non-treatment in a life-or-death situation regarding your child. While I've been frustrated with "traditional" doctors sometimes (seriously, I come to you for a problem and instead of doing the yearly pelvic exam I had scheduled and in the meantine diagnosing my problem, you hand me a pamphlet? What the hell? I searched out a naturopathy clinic, where they do crazy stuff like actually do an exam to diagnose the problem) I would definitely go with my best shot for surviving cancer.
Posted by: Noadi | June 26, 2009 12:08 AM
Look what you've done PZ! You've given Orac hate mail envy.
My mom was treated for cancer 4 years ago and it doesn't look like it's coming back any time soon thanks to surgery, radiation, and chemo. People like Bonnie and Brian piss me off to no end.
Posted by: Akiko | June 26, 2009 12:15 AM
Why is it that those that think they are the most progressive and natural seem to have the same wierd beliefs and superstitions as the religious zealots? I know plenty of educated, seemingly smart people, who think of themselves as very modern who wont use modern medicine. They are all out to save the planet by recycling and such but also are weirdly frightened of modern medicine. They use tea tree oil for everything! They squat in their tubs and have their babies at home, nurse them until they are 5 years old in front of everyone (so we can see how devoted they are to their child), eat only organics, grow their own food, churn their own butter, wont vaccinate their kids or take an aspirin for a head ache. They say things like, "I dont want to introduce more organisms or chemicals into my childs' body". Okay, so they live in a bubble cause if you dont innoculate them now they will catch it later and everything is made of chemicals. It is strange. They think they are so modern and forward thinking that they are old fashioned! Hahaha! They morph into their great grandparents, all suspicious of new fangled inventions but will drink snake oil for their aches and give the baby morphine to sleep. Then these same Earth Children talk about the religious fanatics with such disdain as they run off to the Wicca/Druid/UU meeting. Then I point out that other than themselves, the only otehr people I know who wont take their kid to the doctor or fill a prescription to support "big pharma" whatever that is, are religious nuts. Maybe 'big pharma" is code for "scientists who do research to save lives and make life better".
Posted by: MikeR | June 26, 2009 12:15 AM
Isn't it obvious? He has street cred. How could you ever doubt a middle aged man in "just serviceable health" who has street cred?Posted by: Troy
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June 26, 2009 12:15 AM
I understand how these people feel, I would probably rather die than have extremely primitive and vile chemotherapy.
Posted by: JimB | June 26, 2009 12:17 AM
I wish I had got into this thread earlier. But this really reminds me of a couple I know. There is a group of us that gets together to play cards most every Friday night. 4 couples and 3 or 4 singles. We've been doing this for going on 16 years now. So we all pretty much know each other. And more importantly we all like each other.
So, I've always known one couple was a little closed minded to evidence based medicine. But they do see real doctors in addition to their woo doctors.
So, a while back I'm informing a couple of people on what homeopathy is. They're thinking ancient Chinese natureopthy or something. But I set them straight. Then Phil posts his "Homeopathy Kills" article a couple of weeks ago, and I send the link to the card group.
I swear everything I get from the lady is what Bonnie is spewing up there. Me and the husband trade a few emails and in one of them he says
I had no idea what to say when I saw that so I just addressed his other points.
So, the quote there isn't quite like Brian's. But still strange enough that this post sure reminded me of those conversations and emails.
In the end we just agreed to disagree.
It's still wierd though. I mean they really are a fantastic couple with three wonderful children and I love all of them dearly.
But still...
So, thought I would just throw this in the mix and check out the comments.
Posted by: Rodger T NZ
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June 26, 2009 12:17 AM
I don`t suppose names could be provided to put a face on those numbers?
Posted by: Noadi | June 26, 2009 12:30 AM
@Akiko Hey! Not all of us who grow their own food are crazy. First of all it saves money and of course the fresher the food the better it tastes. Don't lump me with the crazy people who worship the naturalistic fallacy.
Posted by: Fly Defenestrated
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June 26, 2009 12:50 AM
This is why aliens won't make contact with our species. We'll be stuck in the Pre-Warp Age until we can contain our woo.
Posted by: Bill Dauphin | June 26, 2009 12:51 AM
Bonnie:
I'm sure my daughter would have a few words for you on this subject... if she weren't busy with her friends at Yale... 8 years after chemotherapy (and surgery and radiotherapy) saved her brain and her life from cancer.
Bitch!
Brainp:
I haven't thrown a punch at anyone since I was a 13 year old high school freshman, but if you were standing in front of me, I would take this gutless, heartless drivel as a logical reason to make an exception in your case.
Bastard!
Posted by: meh1963 | June 26, 2009 12:53 AM
My father used to say "there are knuckleheads everywhere," and seldom used stronger language. I think that phrase aptly describes the letter-writers....
I'm glad for evidence-based medicine....while I'm healthy, medical science is largely why. I've had way too many illnesses that were death sentences in earlier societies - strep, varicella, various flus, and the odd infected wound.
Posted by: Fly Defenestrated
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June 26, 2009 12:54 AM
This is why aliens won't make contact with our species. We'll be stuck in the Pre-Warp Age until we can contain our woo.
Posted by: Bill Dauphin | June 26, 2009 12:58 AM
Steve Alleyn:
Surely you can see your error, now that I've highlighted it for you! ;^)
Posted by: Fly Defenestrated
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June 26, 2009 12:59 AM
This is why aliens won't make contact with our species. We'll be stuck in the Pre-Warp Age until we can contain our woo.
Posted by: AntiTroll | June 26, 2009 12:59 AM
Troy said:I understand how these people feel,I would probably rather die than have extremely priitive and vile chemotherapy.
Oh dear God,it's back!
Seriously,anyone else here think this guy is one of those 4Chan Anonymous folks who troll for fun?
Posted by: Rorschach | June 26, 2009 1:03 AM
@ 65,
So are the side effects of potato salad left in the sun for too long,too many beers and shots,and watching too many "Nanny" reruns.
Do you have a point?All I see is platitudes.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | June 26, 2009 1:08 AM
100% is not a "rate."
A rate must have a unit of time as a denominator.
this pedantry free of charge
Posted by: Rorschach | June 26, 2009 1:13 AM
Mortality rate FYI 100% death rate people upthread
Posted by: Darren Garrison | June 26, 2009 1:23 AM
Never fear! Our low mortality rate will soon be taken care of!
http://www.naturalnews.com/026503_pandemic_swine_flu_bioterrorism.html
Posted by: Jeroen Metselaar | June 26, 2009 1:27 AM
I work for Big Pharma (speaking for myself) and I often allow myself to get sucked into these kinds of discussions. There is one little fact that these people tend to forget. Pharma is the most thoroughly controlled industry in the world.
No claim can be made and no product can be marketed without getting it licensed first. Pharma needs to produce tonnes of evidence before we can do anything and we constantly have the FDA and EMEA all over our plants for audits.
From my point of view it is the alternative crowd that goes around doing stuff without any oversight or control.
Posted by: snarlymon | June 26, 2009 1:30 AM
I remember the day I was diagnosed with cancer. It was the day before my son's first birthday, and I still relive fear and confusion i felt when I recall the diagnosis. Over the next year I went to Denver Health Center where I was treated with a combination of surgery and chemo. I met other patients on the onco ward and not all of them made it, including the first roomie who was afflicted with Non-Hodkins Lymphoma. He died too young and left a wife and two year old child behind.
My personal experience is this; chemotherapy is brutal. It is a controlled poisoning of the body that is a race to destroy the tumor before the rest of the body succumbs. It was a miserable experience full of nausea, pain and complications that consumed my life a for a year. And there is no doubt in my mind that I made the right decision to go through it. but it is understandable why a 14 year old boy who has been told that he only has to take herbs and vitamins to cure his disease might not want to go through the treatment.
I hope that in fifty years people will look back at the treatment of cancer at the turn of the century and think it was barbaric, because it is. But the only way to come up with better treatments is through solid scientific research, including a better basic understanding of what cancer is and why it forms. Conjecture and hunches won't do it.
So just yesterday my son, who will be starting to college in the fall, came across a picture of a totally bald pallid dude walking in the park in the late winter light, and asked who that was. He didn't recognize me. I'm thankful that I can say that it is more than 16 years since that photo was taken and I've been able to watch my son grow into a young man because of that chemo.
So with all the street cred I can muster from livin it, I think I can say Brianp you're an ignorant asshole.
Posted by: Michael Hawkins | June 26, 2009 1:37 AM
Don't you know, PZ, cancer is a good thing! Andreas Moritz says so. If only we'd address the REAL causes, like "guilt and shame", then we'd be able to irradicate the disease.
Posted by: spinetingler | June 26, 2009 2:02 AM
Seven years after surgery and radiation for cancer that has an overall survival rate of 50% I have to say "fuck you Brian."
(and thanks MUSC and Dr Terry Day)
Posted by: Standard curve
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June 26, 2009 2:03 AM
If type 2 gives you street cred, then what do I get for over 20 years of type 1? (makes gang sign simulating injection into abdomen)
I still get people trying to tell me that I can fix it through diet now and then. I'd like to rip out their pancreases... and harvest the beta cells.
Posted by: spinetingler | June 26, 2009 2:06 AM
>Standard curve (makes gang sign simulating injection into abdomen)
you owe me a new keyboard.
Posted by: Melody | June 26, 2009 2:11 AM
I used to buy into some of this conspiracy stuff when I was a teenager. I didn't get it from the web (though once I got the ideas I found conspiracy websites to confirm my biases), and I think for me it started with some negative experiences with some prescription drugs. So I thought that psychiatric drugs were not just overused but that there must be a big conspiracy (critical thinking was not my forte at the time). In fact, my thinking was not clear enough, that one site I went to linked to the $cientology-affiliated anti-psychiatry site, and yet I would just overlook this. I had had a number of bad experiences with psychologists and such, and despite the illogical conclusions I was making, I still didn't condemn the whole profession, nor was I about to feel comfortable with anything touched by scientology, but I sort of overlooked it because my biases were that strong. At least I never bought into "orthomolecular medicine" or "alternative cures" or things like that.
I wasn't the most far-gone conspiracy theorist type, but I did have those sorts of tendencies. I remember when I was a kid and I thought it would be neat to have an herbal drug shop. Then I started to realize that very few of them are shown to have the desired effects, and that when they do they are usually purified and put into pharmaceutical medications, so then I thought I might be interested in researching potential drugs or do evidence-based medicine.
Unfortunately, my sister is into a fair amount of woo, such as anti-global warming, macrobiotic, "natural is better", some other conspiracy theories I've heard about and probably some I haven't, and sadly she doesn't have insurance despite the real possibility that she may have a genetic disorder, but I'm not sure if she'd go to a doctor if she had the money.
Bonnie sounds a lot like the sorts of fallacious, ignorant arguments I would've made three years ago. However, even then, I doubt I would've applied that to something like cancer, even as little as I knew about it then and as high as my mistrust of the "establishment" then was - it's just too bleedin' obvious that more people survive now with modern treatments than before.
Posted by: Nicol | June 26, 2009 2:18 AM
I'm sure that my father, who's mother died of stomach cancer when he was a child, and who was left to an abusive alcoholic father and a lonely adolescent older brother for care, would completely agree with both of these emails. Oh wait, no, he probably would have preferred to have his mother on the planet for just a little while longer.
You're welcome to your personal choice, but learn to read, then read some case studies, you insensitive bastards. Get facts from both sides, and THEN choose.
Posted by: Gorogh | June 26, 2009 2:29 AM
Mhrrrmlm - some not-so-well thought out thoughts: I really wonder what Brianp's problem is, some misconceived concept of "survival of the fittest"? As if "survival without external help" were a virtue per se... as if it's not altruism at work here - in medicine -, and other traits firmly based in our biology (where else?). So yes, from a purely organismic viewpoint, he might even be right that artificially alleviated selection pressure from diseases weakens a species' defensive mechanisms (an answer I cannot give, for I am no immunologist or epidemiologist or such), but with the dawn of cultural evolution we have long since departed from this.
Posted by: FlameDuck | June 26, 2009 3:10 AM
As opposed to cancer? Even if your stupid asseveration was correct, most cancers are much better at killing people than the treatment. bI find it hilarious how people who object to "Big Pharma" think they want to kill everyone. What company could possibly want to kill off it's customers? Particularly terminally ill people - the longer they live, the longer they'll be needing treatment. Hello? That's right. There's no money in having healthy individuals, being able to work and pay taxes for 70 odd years. At all. While I have no doubt pharmaceutical companies are making ridiculous profits on their products, it is not in their best interest to keep people sick. Sick people can't work, and thus can't earn money, so they can afford medical treatment. It seems like a fairly self-evident truth.Posted by: efrique | June 26, 2009 3:24 AM
chemo is horrible, terrible, awful.
But it does have the benefit of actually working a good portion of the time, and making people live longer. I have at least one friend that's still around well over a decade after having to endure chemo, and I have not the slightest doubt that if he had not, he would have undergone a horrible, terrible death, and only been around a few months at best.
Thank Science for chemo!
Posted by: Liveliest Crib
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June 26, 2009 3:33 AM
What delightfully infuriating streams of unconsciousness.
We have epidemics of heart, cancer and diabetes. Ever asked yourself why?
I'm not sure about cancer and diabetes, but I think the "epidemics of heart" have something to do with the Tin Man.
Instead of looking to the greatest influence in our lives, what we eat, we run to ignorant "doctors" who are sick themselves and demand they heal us.
I have little problem believing that the American diet contributes to our health problems, but this lady's starting to sound like Bill Maher, who admirably aspires to rationality, but often goes astray. Good nutrition is great, but it alone is not going to protect you from all the world's viruses, bacteria and genetic conditions.
As for the last sentence there, I think it's the word ignorant that should be in quotes, not the word doctors.
Doctors were put thru school by Big Pharma. What do you expect, a cure?
Wow, that's a new one. Points for creative conspiranoia.
It is PROVEN, chemotherapy poison does more harm than good. I have witnessed this fact.
Never mind the studies or the theories, folks, Bonnie has witnessed things. What more proof could one ask for?
Stay out of my life with your medical mafia, that has taken away choice. This is about choosing the best treatment for my child.
Indeed, a choice based on normative intuitions instead of hard, empirical data. It doesn't matter what the motives of the manufacturer are or whether a medicine has some mystical lore behind it. It either works or it doesn't work. This is seemingly very difficult for human beings to understand, especially when uneducated about how to evaluate information.
Do you somehow think I don't care for my child?
No, we think you're ill-equipped to make a good decision based on empirical data. That you care for your child is irrelevant if you don't know how to evaluate the information on which decisions must be based. So, no, no one is accusing you of being evil. Just ignorant and swayed by fear and illogical thinking.
You idiot. You're ignorant, swayed by fear and illogical thinking.
We're thinking of getting a projector for our entertainment room. Perhaps we can just hang Bonnie from our ceiling. Think she projects movies too?
Get your facts straight. Fear monger.
This from a woman who wrote:
• We have epidemics . . . . Our [ ] medical system is why.
• Get your stupidity away from my choices for my own child. Sounds like torture to me.
• "treatment" for cancer KILLS.
• There is too much money in keeping us sick. Wake up.
• Remember more than 100,000 people die from prescription drugs every year, when use properly.
On second thought, I won't use her as a projector. She'd be all out of focus.
Posted by: Gorogh | June 26, 2009 3:36 AM
@Liveliest Crib (#133), by saying
what specifically are you referring to? Just being curious :)
Posted by: Liveliest Crib
|
June 26, 2009 3:45 AM
Gorogh @ 134,
Bill Maher (whom I like a lot, by the way, and I watch Real Time as often as I can), claimed to have "got religion" when it comes to diet and health. He is apparently convinced that proper nutrition necessarily gives rise to a perfect immune system, and insists that because he eats right (and I have no idea what he means by that) if he were to travel to disease-ridden regions of third world countries he would not get sick. He wouldn't even be at risk of getting sick, and wouldn't take need the antibiotics and vaccinations recommended for traveling since such preventative measures would make him sicker than the diseases.
I'm not sure how he's come to these conclusions, but he's awfully cock-sure about them on his programs.
Posted by: Gorogh | June 26, 2009 3:54 AM
Liveliest Crib @ 135,
thanks for the info. Sounds a bit naive, but as long as he actually simply cares about nutrition and does not expose himself unnecessarily to diseases, it might be a viable path to good health.
I am taking the freedom of adopting your method of quoting-with-hyperlink. Imitation is the best form of flattery ;)
Posted by: flea | June 26, 2009 4:26 AM
With some luck this two daisies will opt for the darwin award soon.
Posted by: Feynmaniac | June 26, 2009 4:49 AM
Corageous Man Refuses to Believe He Has Cancer
Posted by: davem | June 26, 2009 5:17 AM
Maybe it's to do with all the other stuff we would have died of being cured? I thought that that was a function of population growth more than disease rate in first-World countries? It all ends up at 100% in the long run.Reading Brianp's post, I wonder if he isn't actually on meds for his diabetes? Hence his 'street cred'. Idiot.
Posted by: Matty S | June 26, 2009 5:20 AM
I always feel sorry for those of you Yanks who actually think a little and for yourselves - you're surrounded by swells of idiocy such as this, so much so that I don't know why you don't pack your bags and move to Europe.
Posted by: Will Miller | June 26, 2009 5:32 AM
Gads, the lack of reason prefails . . . you do get some crazy mail.
And MattyS, I would, if I could, but Europe is rather discriminating about letting tainted life forms set up households in their borders. ;-(
Posted by: Kate | June 26, 2009 5:35 AM
There. Is. No. Big. Pharma.
There are pharmaceutical companies.
There are regulatory bodies.
There are pharmacists.
There are research scientists.
There are marketing departments.
...but there is no organization, regulatory body, or individual called "Big Pharma".
Posted by: Michael Marshall | June 26, 2009 5:43 AM
Kudos to Brianp, though. He obviously set out utterly determined to have no paragraph breaks in his message whatsoever, and he's stuck to that principle regardless of length and readability. That's backbone, that is.
Posted by: Gilian | June 26, 2009 5:51 AM
@ Kate (142)
That's Exactly What They Want Us To Believe!
*Runs away to the store to buy large amounts of tinfoil*
Posted by: meh-dude! | June 26, 2009 6:10 AM
Brianp ought to invest in some grammar lessons and the irony of him being a diabetic is just too rich..what kind of treatments are you using for that? LOL
Posted by: AJS | June 26, 2009 6:36 AM
@ Nick Husher, #46:
They'd most probably get sued into oblivion if they tried it. People would rather destroy themselves than be told what to do.Posted by: Kismet | June 26, 2009 6:36 AM
Kate, sure there is -> big pharmaceutical companies = big pharma? I just don't like to use that term because it's very derogatory...
The recent Elsevier case shows that there is indeed all reason in the world to heavily critisise "big pharma", but the same can be said for doctors, the gov or supplement companies. We should be thankful that pharma companies at least manage to deliver great treatment modalities despite their problems.
flim flam, no this is not alt med woo. Sure healthy people get cancer, mutations are stochastic afterall! If you lived long enough your chances of getting cancer quickly trend towards 100% anyway.
Your post, however, sounds as if a damn healthy lifestyle did not DRASTICALLY cut cancer and mortality risk. Obviously this is bullshit. I don't want you to misleadingly downplay such an important thing like prevention with the tone of your post. If you practise e.g. CRON your chances of getting early (adult) cancer are likely extremely slim; I'd say bordering on insignificant (~0) but that's just a guess.
raven, I'm not sure if you deny the first or the second part of his statement, but "Patients and families need to do their own research" is actually correct. While believing blindly what the statistics say is quite foolsih on the other hand.
Trials are fine, meta-analysis of independent trials are even better, but they're not fool-proof. Trials are statistics, "cold, hard numbers" as you say. People are not. People are NOT numbers; they're individuals. Therefore most treatments need to be individualised according to different needs and the situation. That's what good doctors do anyway.
Secondly, doctors are just humans. Some of them are morons. Actually many of them are morons. You might be dead if you don't get a second or third opinion, but how do you find out that you need a second opinion without researching the diagnosis?
Thirdly, there's no standard therapy (at least no proven therapy which has been shown to best placebo in RCTs) for quite a number of rare and/or deadly diseases. Everything you can do in such a situation is based on speculation.
Posted by: Brg | June 26, 2009 7:13 AM
Hello!
Well, first post here, and I'm sorry to disagree now in one point, whereas I have always agreed with PZ's writings and his readers.
Thing is, I was diagnosed as a type 2 diabetic with blood sugar around the 400 mark. I weighed 82 Kgs at the time, so I was not morbidly obese. The first thing my doctor prescribed was a diet to lose weight (instead of one eliminating sugary-stuff, which was what I had expected), and Actos. Now, Actos is an expensive drug that has some side effects that didn't thrill me much, so I asked about this approach, and whether there were other options; exercise, perhaps? She said that there were none.
I wasn't happy with this, so I started analyzing my problem and my body. What I did was to eat different types of food, and then use a glucometer before and every 15 to 30 minutes thereafter (and later every hour) to see how my blood glucose reacted.
I found that what caused my blood glucose was carbohydrate intake. I could even predict how much my glucose levels would rise based on the amount of carbs I took. I did this every day for months. And now I know that as long as I don't surpass my threshold, I will have average (90 - 100), or even normal (85 - 90) blood glucose levels constantly.
Of course, this goes against current medical dogma on type 2 diabetes, not to mention current nutrition dogma, in which fat intake is the devil itself. But I don't have to take drugs to keep my levels down. And this was true when I weighed 82 kgs, and when I went down to 68 kgs through a rigorous exercise routine.
I understand how people can rant against these doctors and the ADA, because most of us feel that they do not offer coherent and consistent approaches to handling type 2 diabetes. How can the ADA instruct people to eat carb-laden meals when carb intake is what makes glucose levels rise?
What would have I done if my glucose levels had kept up all the time despite my efforts? Of course, then I would have taken Actos and whatever the doctor prescribed.
Now,cancer is a very different thing. And I cannot see any alternative option other than following doctors' instructions.
Regards,
Brg
Posted by: Spiro Keat | June 26, 2009 7:14 AM
Kel #3
"But of course, "mummy instincts" mean that uneducated fools know better than trained professionals..."
Sometimes yes, I have seen quite a few instances where doctors have missed something and only the mother's insistence that there is something wrong has saved her child from harm.
NOT the same thing as the current lunatic under discussion though.
Posted by: Duma | June 26, 2009 7:52 AM
brg @ #148
The reason your doctor did not advise medicine was likely because she wanted you to lose weight quickly. Chances are your health was in danger, and that excercise, whilst helpful, would not help you lose weight fast enough.
I have to ask, what exactly does that have anything to do with cancer treatments?
Posted by: Duma | June 26, 2009 7:58 AM
to continue, you don't seem to understand. I don't mean to offend but, are you overweight? if you are, lowering your carbohydrate intake and increasing your fat intake will not help you lose your diabetes. Most instances of type 2 diabetes occur because of overweightness, and losing the weight will help you lose the diabetes permanently.
Also, you shouldn't remove carbohydrates entirely from your diet.
Respiration of lipids is all well and good but it is a lot less healthy for your body.
My advice: eat healthy food and excercise. Take whatever medicine your doctor prescribed, but excercise as well. Eventually your diabetes should go away entirely.
Posted by: nomuse | June 26, 2009 7:59 AM
Too late for all those free pens, tho -- at least in California. Apparently the rules changed recently.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 26, 2009 7:59 AM
And did you know that they beat for a lifetime with no external energy source?
Posted by: Naked Bunny with a Whip
|
June 26, 2009 8:05 AM
No. Jesus is immortal, and he's American.
Posted by: jo5ef | June 26, 2009 8:05 AM
Well i used to work in the Pharma industry and I think its fair to say that the industry model isn't perfect but the conspiracy stuff just really annoys the hell out of me for most of the reasons cited by others above. But what really shits me to tears is that most people who criticize it have absolutely no knowledge whatsoever about how the drug dev process works. I mean nothing.
As for this: "If you practise e.g. CRON your chances of getting early (adult) cancer are likely extremely slim; I'd say bordering on insignificant (~0) but that's just a guess."
Any references? Oh thats just a guess, right, I see. Your equivocating and dubious claims are little better than the full blown wackos as far as i can see.
Posted by: Kalldoro | June 26, 2009 8:07 AM
Both of these e-mails amuse and horrify me, but I couldn't help but notice one thing in Brianp's e-mail that I found to be incredibly stupid. He obviously knows nothing about death rates and such things.
The reason why the death rate in America might be lower than in Western Europe is because the birth rate is still high and there aren't as many old people, the death rate in Western Europe has been rising lately because people live longer and the number of people dying of old age is rising. It has very little to do with cancer.
Posted by: Rorschach | June 26, 2009 8:16 AM
Nope,it doesnt.Ignoring the fact that there is no "dogma" for now.
No shit ! Its a miracle !
1. We cant know that from your weight alone.
2. It's not necessary to be morbidly obese to develop T2DM.
Sounds like the right thing to do.
Seems your doc failed to refer you to a dietician.
Got the rest right.
The relevance of all this in this thread?
Posted by: Richard Smith | June 26, 2009 8:25 AM
What sort of street cred does congenital hypopituitarism plus type 2 diabetes get me? If Big Pharma would only lower the price of growth hormone therapy, maybe I could drop the Levothyroxin and Androgel and they'd still make a profit. Damn you, Big Pharma!
(I guess my "gang sign" would be slapping one hand over my mouth - popping the pills - then rubbing my chest - applying the gel, not "Mmm, yummy thyroid (and Metformin, and Lipitor, and Actos)!")
Posted by: BigBob | June 26, 2009 8:25 AM
We used to think Dubya was incoherent. Maybe it's like a balance thing; you lose Dubya and a thousand brow knitted knuckle draggers crawl out of the woodwork to fill the vacuum.
Posted by: Muffin | June 26, 2009 8:44 AM
"I am 49 in just serviceable health with type 2 diabetes, so I have street cred. "
Wow. Just wow.
Posted by: snarlymon | June 26, 2009 8:53 AM
I remember the day I was diagnosed with cancer. It was the day before my son's first birthday, and I still relive fear and confusion i felt when I recall the diagnosis. Over the next year I went to Denver Health Center where I was treated with a combination of surgery and chemo. I met other patients on the onco ward and not all of them made it, including the first roomie who was afflicted with Non-Hodkins Lymphoma. He died too young and left a wife and two year old child behind.
My personal experience is this; chemotherapy is brutal. It is a controlled poisoning of the body that is a race to destroy the tumor before the rest of the body succumbs. It was a miserable experience full of nausea, pain and complications that consumed my life a for a year. And there is no doubt in my mind that I made the right decision to go through it. but it is understandable why a 14 year old boy who has been told that he only has to take herbs and vitamins to cure his disease might not want to go through the treatment.
I hope that in fifty years people will look back at the treatment of cancer at the turn of the century and think it was barbaric, because it is. But the only way to come up with better treatments is through solid scientific research, including a better basic understanding of what cancer is and why it forms. Conjecture and hunches won't do it.
So just yesterday my son, who will be starting to college in the fall, came across a picture of a totally bald pallid dude walking in the park in the late winter light, and asked who that was. He didn't recognize me. I'm thankful that I can say that it is more than 16 years since that photo was taken and I've been able to watch my son grow into a young man because of that chemo.
So with all the street cred I can muster from livin it, I think I can say Brianp you're an ignorant asshole.
Posted by: cypressgreen | June 26, 2009 9:01 AM
I have more street cred than that moron at the top. I have worked for 13yrs in a Radiation depatment of a major US hospital. And several jobs here at that.
Our residents (at 30k salary a yesr) and new staff doctors struggle to pay back their school debts. And while even 10 yrs ago the big treatment machine companies paid for holiday parties, luncheons and assorted gifts, it is now against the rules.
We do heavy research here. We're always looking for ways to fine tune treatments so they are more effective and have less side effects.
My father came in with end stage cancer. Our doctor privately told me a year and a half later that he'd given my dad 6 months. Dad ended up living 2 1/2 yrs. Long enough to see both daughters married and his first grandchild. And to have a fiancee.
I see people come in daily who have lived far past the "5 yr" mark. And even 5 yrs is nothing to sneeze at. Chemo and Radiation have some bad side effects, but you have to break some eggs to make an omlette, ya' know? How many of our patients reply to the question, "How are you today?" with "Above ground!"
Also, a friend's mother died from a heart damaged by radiation from her hodgekin's. She said she was pissed for several years until she realized her mom would have died right away with no treatment. She and her brother would never have been born, and her family would have lost 25 yrs of love and life.
So, fuckers, just shut up.
Thank you.
Posted by: sailor1031 | June 26, 2009 9:02 AM
wow! I'm impressed; you don't get this level of stupidity AND ignorance every day. This is great stuff. I'm wondering though, did Brianp get tested to find out he has Type II Diabetes? or does he just know? Anyway if he's not treating with drugs and diet he won't be around long enough to take this comedy show on tour. Brianp can you say "coronary artery disease" and "infarction"?
Posted by: Selcaby | June 26, 2009 9:07 AM
Brg @ 148:
Actually, many diabetes experts within the medical mainstream would agree with your conclusions about carbohydrate intake. Your doctor may have been behind the times, or may have had insufficient faith in your ability to stick to an exercise regimen.
The thing is, carbohydrate is a good thing to eat in general ... if your body can cope with the resulting surge of glucose into your bloodstream. If it can't, there's a conflict of interest and you have to choose what's best for you.
I have type 1 diabetes and treat it using the "normal diet + as much insulin as I need" approach (I wouldn't go so far as to claim I eat an exemplary healthy diet, but it's what I aim towards). My HbA1c is on target and I don't have a weight problem. I find that I feel better and my blood glucose is more predictable when I eat more high-carbohydrate food like pasta and fruit and less high-fat food like nuts and cheese. The lunch I've just eaten consisted of some sushi and a banana. So that's what works for me. On the other hand, since I've got type 1 I don't get told to take the drugs with the nasty side-effects (other than hypos of course).
Posted by: MosesZD
|
June 26, 2009 9:09 AM
As much as part of my family is a medical family and we are quite well aware of the evils of "for-profit" medicine along the lines of SOME dangerous, ineffective drugs and ludicrous, to the point of obscene profits, in the industry these two letters miss a very important point:
Homeopathic/alternative medicine is the intersection of greed and quackery.
Posted by: Cathal | June 26, 2009 9:25 AM
Hey, I have a friend called 'Brian P'.
Probably not the same guy.
Posted by: MosesZD
|
June 26, 2009 9:30 AM
Testimonials -- The sure sign someone is almost certainly lying about "medicine." For example, Laetrile which, despite over fifty-years of fail, still has its adherents. A few of which survive due to spontaneous remission (and give testimonials) at the same rate as "non-treatment" and the rest who die and, obviously, don't give their negative testimonials.
Studies -- A probable sign that things work (though we have the cherry-picking and side-effect issues because of the idiotic way we allow drug trials to be run).
Posted by: J. Allen | June 26, 2009 9:31 AM
If we want to fix the gene pool I can think of a better group to off then those who get cancer...
Posted by: phantomreader42 | June 26, 2009 9:32 AM
Dustin @ #9:
Except that they dont't want to forego medical treatment. They want everyone else to forego medical treatment. They want medicine to just go away, unless it can help them. The second guy admits he's a diabetic, and receiving treatment for that, but he wants to deny treatment to other people.
Posted by: NoAstronomer | June 26, 2009 9:35 AM
So to summarize, BrianP thinks we should let people with cancer just die but save everyone with type 2 diabetes. What a novel concept.
Posted by: phantomreader42 | June 26, 2009 9:36 AM
'Tis Himself @ #17:
And they all work without an external energy source! :P
Posted by: /Mike | June 26, 2009 9:44 AM
Ah, the failure of car manufacturers is all my fault. When the oil needed changing at the first 3,000 miles I should have just let it go. If a car can't survive it should just be pushed off the road. Survival of the fitest - car manufacturers should be judged on that only. Routine maintenance is a fault and cars that require it should be weeded out. :-)
Posted by: tsg | June 26, 2009 9:46 AM
Note to Bonnie: being responsible for making decisions is not the same as being the most qualified.
Posted by: Kelly | June 26, 2009 10:10 AM
Steven Alleyn:
Hoping you see this. You said that the Alt med product lines are owned by big Pharma. It would make sense, but do you have a cite for this? It would be quite handy for future arguments with the alt med..need to get away from big pharma
Posted by: samson | June 26, 2009 10:10 AM
"Remember more than 100,000 people die from prescription drugs every year, when use properly. Wow what a racket."
Anyone who can't use the proper form of use/used is a fucking moron. Ugh.
Posted by: Nichole | June 26, 2009 10:15 AM
Why does everyone talk about cancer and natural selection?
People generally reproduce before they get cancer. You reproduce in your teens, 20s, 30s, maybe 40s? You usually get cancer between 50 and 80. I mean sure, there are lots of exceptions like Danny boy here, but uh, cancer isn't selected for or against. Where do the crackpots come from, bringing natural selection into cancer discussions?
Posted by: raven | June 26, 2009 10:18 AM
The second part. It was an idiotic statement. Docs have no problem with patients learning as much as possible but the guy thinks they just make up stuff as they go along. Medicine is evidence based. What is wrong with "believing" in scientific data. As opposed to what, guesses, fond hopes, chicken entrails, or astrology?
Trials are fine, meta-analysis of independent trials are even better, but they're not fool-proof. Trials are statistics, "cold, hard numbers" as you say. People are not. People are NOT numbers; they're individuals. Therefore most treatments need to be individualised according to different needs and the situation. That's what good doctors do anyway.True but that is not what libhome said.
Oh really? And you've got an undergraduate science degree, were accepted at a med school, graduated with an MD, and practiced medicine for a few decades? It isn't easy and you can't be too dumb. There are more bad docs than I care to think about but they aren't that common. There are also hordes of highly trained, skillful GPs and specialists who routinely perform what would be considered miracles a few decades ago. At least half the people I know would already be dead without modern medicine. Not bad for a bunch of morons.
True but irrelevant. Medicine and docs can't cure everything. Well, duh, the death rate is still 100%. There is no standard treatment for ALS for example, just grasping at straws. But so what? For many common conditions, medicine is the difference between living and dying. The numbers are clear, 30 years extra in a century.
Any adult is free to refuse any and all medical care. Few do so. The main problem is that demand and ability to pay has outrun supply. Amazing how many people want services, advice, and treatment from "morons".
Posted by: thomas | June 26, 2009 10:30 AM
Brg @ 148-
Nothing you mentioned is anything other than standard knowledge at diabetic clinics. I don't really understand why you think the knowledge that carbohydrates boost blood sugar is novel.
Maybe like others have suggested your doctor was attempting to implement other measures in early treatment. To be honest that doesn't really excuse having an informative conversation with a patient about their condition - but that would be a flaw in your doctor. Not a flaw in medical circles in general.
The stuff you mentioned is common knowledge.
Posted by: Raynfala | June 26, 2009 10:55 AM
As a survivor of Hodgkin's Lymphoma -- and two treatment cycles (12 sessions) of chemotherapy and a short series of radiation treatment -- I'd like to offer up a big ol' K.M.A. to Bonnie and Brian.
Posted by: Kismet | June 26, 2009 10:56 AM
Raven, I'm not so sure that incompetent doctors are really as rare as you think, at least where I live they probably aren't. Or maybe I'm just expecting the wrong things from the wrong people. It seems there is a huge cleft between emergency medicine (which is outstanding) and preventative medicine (which is almost non-existent or sub-par). Some doctors indeed seem to "make up stuff" or to be more exact: have a very twisted and limited understanding of the big picture. Or are more interested in making money than preventing disease.
So I think I can actually second his last sentence.
Admittedly I've only been to a dozen or two of doctors (hey, I'm young). Maybe I'll be more lucky with the next dozen.
Posted by: Otto | June 26, 2009 11:10 AM
Rorschach @66,
oh my, you really flattened me, you yell so loud that my ears are still ringing. You obviously must be right since you are so loud.
MosesZD @167,
you make some good points, testimonials are iffy. As far laetrile goes, I never had the impression that it was respectable.
One thing, Burzynsky does not hide out in some obscure country, even if some might argue that Texas is a myth.
Posted by: Metro | June 26, 2009 11:55 AM
So, excuse me if anyone's raised this point before, but is Brianp saying he'd be willing to refuse all treatment and die of cancer because the human race would be better off?
Although reading his screed it's hard to see where he'd be wrong, if that is in fact what he's saying ... it's hard to tell. He appears to be paragraph-compromised along with thinking-compromised.
Posted by: MickyW | June 26, 2009 11:59 AM
Yes, well except Israel where it's 99.99999999%, because you know there was that one guy......
Posted by: raven | June 26, 2009 12:47 PM
Seems Burzynski 's patients are cured of their cancers and then go on to die of...cancer.
Posted by: Monado | June 26, 2009 1:10 PM
Rex Fox: the definitive version of "Total Eclipse of the Heart"
Posted by: Tsu Dho Nimh | June 26, 2009 1:10 PM
Bonnie says, "No Daniel will not live. He has been tortured and poisoned.
May we look to the real cause of these degenerative diseases, like the FAKE food pushed on the misled public by those who's goal is profit, not health.
Daniel's family, if I recall correctly, lives on a dairy farm, raises their own food, lives the "natural holistic life" complete with vitamins and alkalized water and all that stuff ... they seldom go into town, so their exposure to FAKE food is minimal. But he still got Hodgkin's lymphoma.
Posted by: Knockgoats | June 26, 2009 1:12 PM
Drugs are tested for efficacy in 3 phase trials. Phase 3 usually has a few hundred ot more likely a few thousand patients, randomized, double blind, placebo or best available therapy controlled. Then it goes through the meatgrinder at the FDA.
You end up with statistics and p values. Cold, hard numbers. This whole process can easily take 10 years, involves dozens of professionals and can cost 300 million to 1 billion bucks. For one drug.
All true, but... Ben goldacre in Bad Science, once he's eviscerated the SCAM-merchants, goes on to describe the many ways in which trial results can be and are massaged in the interests of pharmaceutical companies; the fact that they spend far more on marketing and administration than on R&D (about 31% to 14% for the biggest US companies), and a claim from the Global Forum on Health Research that approximately 90% of biomedical research effort goes focuses on approximately 10% of the global health burden - the profitable part. For the first of these problems, he also has what he describes as "The single cheap solution that will solve all of the problems in the entire world" (I think the exaggeration is tongue-in-cheek): a public, open and properly enforced clinical trails resister, where the methods of any drug trial must be described in detail before the trial begins. (For the other two problems, of course, you'd need democratic socialism.)
Posted by: Marina | June 26, 2009 2:02 PM
"You idiot. You're ignorant, swayed by fear and illogical thinking.
Uh...
Wait...
What?
Posted by: Rick McWilliams
|
June 26, 2009 2:10 PM
Doctors and teams of doctors are not always right. I was "diagnosed" with kidney cancer 20 years ago. The well respected team of Stanford doctors, all wearing lab coats, sat me down and explained the surgery that was required. I did not think that the 1.3cm feature on my kidney looked like the sonograms and ct scans in the book. To me it looked like a jumble of veins. They also could not quite tell me the surgery success rate with this type of cancer. They apparently do not keep score in a sensible manner. For instance if I were blinded as a result of anesthesia, but cancer never develops it is a success.
I declined the surgery. After many years and many sonograms the feature is still 1.3cm. If they had done the surgery they would have claimed total success.
Whenever a success rate is claimed ask for the study. The side effects of serious treatment are rarely mentioned. I have three friends who have survived lymphoma. Radiation, and chemotherapy seemed to work. Medical success. Too bad all three cannot salivate to eat normal food. They were each told that only 1% suffer that effect. I have not seen the study that would support that but it is a suspicious coincidence. The treatment worked, but the doctors probably lied.
Posted by: BBCaddict | June 26, 2009 2:23 PM
#12 - "I got about this far and couldn't go any further:
"Doctors were put thru school by Big Pharma. What do you expect, a cure?"
Funny... no one I know in med school is getting their 250,000 debt paid by Big Pharma."
I wonder if he thinks that hopsitals are going to start looking like NASCAR tracks with doctors wearing patches from Pfizer, Novartis, etc. all over their coats.
HAHAHAH! Fools.
Posted by: BBCaddict | June 26, 2009 2:26 PM
#12 - "I got about this far and couldn't go any further:
"Doctors were put thru school by Big Pharma. What do you expect, a cure?"
Funny... no one I know in med school is getting their 250,000 debt paid by Big Pharma."
I wonder if he thinks that hopsitals are going to start looking like NASCAR tracks with doctors wearing patches from Pfizer, Novartis, etc. all over their coats.
HAHAHAH! Fools.
Posted by: Otto | June 26, 2009 3:23 PM
Raven @184,
there is a heap of good information:
http://www.quackwatch.org/search/webglimpse.cgi?ID=1&query=Burzynski
and it does not look good at all with Burzynski.
Posted by: Bone Oboe | June 26, 2009 3:27 PM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_ink
I'm happy to learn that there's a name for letters like those posted above.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | June 26, 2009 3:35 PM
Do it. I'm completely serious. Send them each other's hate mail.
(And point out, while you're at it, that Brian is wrong in believing that cancer is heritable. It's not. Eugenics doesn't work against cancer.)
Hitler was by no means godless, and it's not even all that clear whether Stalin was.
??? ??? ???
As a matter of fact, Whacko Jacko is actually off-topic on this blog, which is more about science…
Neither sanity nor superstition are that heritable.
That depends a lot on which foods those are. Raw-foodists are so close to the limit of chronical undernourishment that they don't produce enough milk for a baby.
He hasn't had any tests for cancer. Even he manages to get that across clearly enough.
Posted by: eNeMeE | June 26, 2009 3:40 PM
If type 2 gives you street cred, then what do I get for over 20 years of type 1? (makes gang sign simulating injection into abdomen)You're a gutter, eh?
War! That junk goes in the trunk! Butters forever!
I still get people trying to tell me that I can fix it through diet now and then. I'd like to rip out their pancreases... and harvest the beta cells.Oh. my. god. I don't know if I could stay out of jail if I met someone who tried to tell me that.
Posted by: kaley | June 26, 2009 4:26 PM
"Doctors were put thru school by Big Pharma. What do you expect, a cure?"
I am actually working for one of the "big pharma" companies, and yes, research is only done where good returns are expected, so yes, my company and the competitors are not in it for the good of mankind.
But did you notice the word competitor? Actually, people will not use drugs which do not work if there is one on the market that does. So where do you think research is going?
Posted by: kaley | June 26, 2009 4:28 PM
"Doctors were put thru school by Big Pharma. What do you expect, a cure?"
I am actually working for one of the "big pharma" companies, and yes, research is only done where good returns are expected, so yes, my company and the competitors are not in it for the good of mankind.
But did you notice the word competitor? Actually, people will not use drugs which do not work if there is one on the market that does. So where do you think research is going?
Posted by: Chrystine | June 26, 2009 4:43 PM
The first letter has two valid points:
1. many doctors who administer to patients are themselves unhealthy (mostly due to poor diet and lack of exercise)
2. Most of the food sold in supermarkets is crap and is so unnatural to the human body that it causes obesity and other disorders we are just beginning to learn about. In fact, 85% of the food in most grocers is crap that can be kept on a shelf for years. Your best bet is to shop the perimeter of the grocer in the fresh produce and meat sections. If a foodsource can keep in a plastic container for over a year, it probably isn't the best thing to throw into your body.
The second emailer seems upset that more people are not dying in America today. Perhaps he would like to volunteer?
Posted by: Chrystine | June 26, 2009 4:45 PM
The first letter has two valid points:
1. many doctors who administer to patients are themselves unhealthy (mostly due to poor diet and lack of exercise)
2. Most of the food sold in supermarkets is crap and is so unnatural to the human body that it causes obesity and other disorders we are just beginning to learn about. In fact, 85% of the food in most grocers is crap that can be kept on a shelf for years. Your best bet is to shop the perimeter of the grocer in the fresh produce and meat sections. If a foodsource can keep in a plastic container for over a year, it probably isn't the best thing to throw into your body.
The second emailer seems upset that more people are not dying in America today. Perhaps he would like to volunteer?
Posted by: Knockgoats | June 26, 2009 4:50 PM
Actually, people will not use drugs which do not work if there is one on the market that does. So where do you think research is going? kaley
That assumes "people" know which drugs work, and which of those work best. This is often not the case even for medics, due to placebo effects, the problems with clinical trials Ben Goldacre's Bad Science points to, and the massive resources pharmaceutical companies pour into advertising. Is your company supporting the introduction of a universal, public, open and properly enforced register of trials, where the methods of every clinical trial to be performed must be described in detail before the trial? If not, why not? As to where the research is going, most of it, now, is on "me-too" drugs for conditions which are known to generate a good revenue stream: drugs just different enough from some existing drug to avoid current patents and obtain a new one. This drug will then be presented in as good a light as possible without outright fraud, e.g. by testing it against a suboptimal (or excessive) dose of its competitor, reporting only trials that have good outcomes, stopping the trial at the first point where the new drug appears to be doing better, "torturing the data" to find some measure that can be presented as favourable, and whatever other tricks the company can come up with. Goldacre notes that the number of new drugs per year has actually declined in recent decades, because all the "low-hanging fruit" have been picked - at least for the diseases of the affluent from which pharmaceutical companies make the vast bulk of their profits. IOW, despite the gains due to scientific medicine, and the fact that "Big Pharma" is certainly not an evil conspiracy to kill patients, the current socio-technical system for generating medical advances is severely disfunctional.
Posted by: Berny | June 26, 2009 4:55 PM
Idiots, both of them.
I was sick with Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma a little over a year ago. Now, six months after the end of my chemotherapy, the cancer is in remission and I'm feeling fantastic. If the chemo was poison shouldn't I be feeling worse? I'm glad I didn't put my stock in woo (not that it was ever likely I would).
As for BrianP, go fuck yourself, sir. Let's see if you walk the talk when you come down with some nasty, but curable, illness.
Posted by: Danny | June 26, 2009 5:01 PM
One of the most cogent comments I've seen about Big Pharma and the Cancer Epidemic was, surprisingly enough, in a recent issue of Supergirl.
Backstory: Supergirl has promised a young boy that she won't let him die... and then learned that he has a horribly malignant brain tumor. So she's going all over the world trying to find some super-science that will help.
Considering the possibility that maybe something in the modern environment has caused the tumor, she tracks down Mitch Shelley, one of the DC Universe's immortals; he's been alive since... oh, the mid-Paleolithic or so.
Supergirl: Mitch... you have to tell me. Before civilization... did people die of cancer?
Mitch: ...no, people didn't die of cancer. They died of tiger.
If you want to know how much science has really done for us, ask someone who's been alive since before we had fire.
Posted by: Watchman | June 26, 2009 5:30 PM
Bill Dauphin:
Holy shit, man. I had no idea. Your daughter... is at Yale?!?
Well, at least it's not Harvard.
No, seriously. If you've discussed her illness and recovery on the boards before, I missed it. So glad to hear she made it. My son starts are Hampshire in Sept. We've been lucky; aside from childhood asthma and three (!) concussions, he's been perfectly healthy.
Posted by: Alexis | June 26, 2009 5:45 PM
While theoretically cancer (and heart-disease, and diabetes, and malaria, and pneumonia, and TB, and whatever nasty infections you get from hurting yourself, and any other killer you can think of) would do a pretty good job of thinning the herd and culling the weak, the problem is that most people in the herd have people who aren't willing to let go. Theoretically I agree that the world is overpopulated and modern medicine encourages that and destroys the idea of natural selection. But realistically, if it was MY mom or my son or my loved one who was sick, I would of course turn to the best chance for survival even if it's not necessarily the best for the species or the planet or whatever. Unlike Brianp, I am human, and do not want my grandmother to die of pneumonia.
Posted by: Watchman | June 26, 2009 6:39 PM
Re: Death Rate.
From the CIA World Factbook:
The crude death rate chart included in the link shows two things: First, and this will come as no surpise, that BrianP doesn't quite have his facts straight. Second, the death rate in the United States is not extraordinarily low; in fact it's slightly higher than the world average.
As for this claim:
European countries with lower death rates than the USA (rank 102):
Greenland (107), Cyprus (114), Ireland (115), Liechtenstein (125), Iceland (140), Albania (175)
The death rate in the USA (102) is 8.38 per thousand at mid-year. A 50% increase would bump it up to 12.57 per thousand, and the rank of the USA would go all the way up to 36, at which point the only European countries with higher death rates would be Monaco, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Serbia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Russia.
According to the same source, the population growth rate in the US is higher than most European countries, but only slightly higher than Canada, and lower than New Zealand and Australia. It is significantly lower than the world average.
I'm all for ZPG, but -- call me crazy -- accomplishing it by withholding medical care for treatable diseases and conditions seems like the wrong way to go.
Posted by: Scrabcake | June 26, 2009 6:43 PM
These two are complete idiots. I don't understand every single detail of the biology of cancer, but I understand enough to know that an MD has far more chance of helping me if I ever end up with a type of cancer than a witchdoctor or diet does.
My stance on pharmaceutical companies is that they are like all big companies. They're made up of ordinary people, some smart, some not, all wanting to pay the rent every month or put their kids through college. They're not evil, they're not good. That's not their goal. The goal of a large corporation is generally money. And if helping people leads to more money then they do that. If banging out Viagra wannabes and hair tonic and fish-oil gel-tabs makes them money then they do that. Screwing people over seldom makes them money. It's the same with big oil, big agra, hollywood, EA, etc.
As for the problem of alties, the MDs who hang around here, Orac included, need to realize that a lot of people are driven away from science based medicine by bad experiences with doctors. Doctors aren't saints. A lot of them are arrogant, overworked, unfriendly and curt with patients. Just like anything else, medicine has its share of assholes, and to deny this and pretend they're all saints and geniuses just adds to the problem.
Med schools don't select for compassion or humility or people skills...at admission or during education. That's not the point. The skeptical type need to remember that just because one evidence based doctor is a complete wank doesn't mean they all are, and the MDs need to remember that just because a person has a bad experience with a doctor and says so on a forum doesn't mean that they need to be called an idiot and given the full 'tude.
I honestly think that if more doctors were in the habit of sitting down and talking to their patients about why grandma's heart flutter that she's had since birth suddenly requires a pacemaker when she came in for a bladder infection, and explaining why taking a ton of fish-oil isn't going to cure that bladder infection, there would not be nearly as many people getting pissed off at their healthcare experience and wandering off to alternative meds.
Posted by: kevinbbg | June 26, 2009 6:46 PM
The alternative medicine people are often more fanatical and irrational than any Christian Fundie. A Christian at least has the excuse of 2,000 of propaganda being passed on from generation to generation, but Bonnie and Brian are just nuts.
Posted by: Ryan | June 26, 2009 7:02 PM
Well at least he isn't a complete kook.
Posted by: Bill | June 26, 2009 9:46 PM
When these bufoons get cancer they will be SCREAMING for anything to keep them alive, most likely do to their fear of some sadistic old man in the sky.
And to brianp, it's clear that you were sexually abused by a man at some point in your life. I mean this with all the compassion and sincerity I can muster, you can get help to deal with it and you can heal from the pain and trauma that you had to endure. I'm sorry that you had to experience such abuse. It's not your fault or the fault of people whom you dissagree with either.
Posted by: Keenacat | June 27, 2009 8:46 AM
Chemo is way better to bear today than it was a decade ago. There are better medications to prevent side effects like nausea and a bunch of newer chemo-drugs with fewer side effects in general.
Chemo today is way less "barbaric" than it used to be. A noticeable bunch of patients experience no side effects at all and lots of patients experience few side effects and can be managed on an outpatient basis, some are even able to work.
(The same goes for radiation therapy.)
I think it just may be possible that a good deal of the fear of "barbaric", "cruel" and "agonizing" chemo stems from early attempts at chemo therapy and has little to do with todays reality.
And no, I'm not denying that some patients might suffer terribly, but I deny that this is the majority.
Posted by: Bill Dauphin, OM | June 29, 2009 12:49 PM
Yeah, even 8 years ago, when my daughter was going through it, chemo (and her regimen was pretty stout) was far less awful than I expected it to be. True, she lost all her hair (and I mean all her hair, including eyebrows and eyelashes, making her look like a marble sculpture) and her immune system was so badly compromised so much of the time that she was basically homebound for the duration of her treatment. But her side effects (nausea, throat pain, infection, etc.) were far less severe than I had feared; her treatment was never delayed by infection or illness; and she has only a tiny handful of very minor lasting after-effects.
That's not to say that her year of chemo was some sort of pleasure cruise... but it was nowhere near bad enough to make anyone think it was worse than the disease.
Posted by: Widgetas
|
June 30, 2009 3:40 AM
Aside:
I spy with my little quote mining eye, something beginning with:
"Kill the weak! Let the strong live! We should only let the strong propagate!" - PZ Meyers