…and this is a 
After the total votes were added up in the big GMO debate, the Economist scores it 62% against biotechnology, 38% for biotechnology. They also explain that there was a huge turnout and that there was a lot of active campaigning for particular views.
The voting has shifted dramatically during this debate, starting out heavily in favour of the motion, swinging strongly in the other direction (seemingly in response to an organised campaign by anti-GM activists), and then swinging back towards the middle. But in the end the opponents of biotechnology—or, more precisely, the opponents of genetic modification in its current form—carried the day with 62% of the votes, against 38% for supporters of the motion.
So, one strike against genetically modified organisms, one big win for pharyngulation. These online polls are a terrible way to resolve debates, since all it takes is a few big sites charging in to advocate a view to greatly skew the results. The Economist seems to fail to grasp that concept even now, unfortunately.
What about these anti-GM activists? I pointed out one example. It turns out that another bunch of them were at Crazy Mike's Sewer Pipe of Misinformation, where Mike Adams now gloats about his 'victory'. He's also got some wild conspiracy theories, and fascinating descriptions of you, fellow readers of Pharyngula.
Today's "scientism" followers (the cult worshippers who call themselves "science bloggers") don't value life, knowledge or truth. For some astonishing reason, they pick the most evil side of every issue. On the issue of GMOs, for example, they automatically side with Monsanto and DuPont, calling for more biotech Frankenseed interventions that threaten the very future of life on our planet.
Well, I think if you actually look at the discussions that went on here, you find a lot of opposition to corporate abuse of technology; there were many people who thought biotech was fine, but Monsanto…not so benevolent. You also found people who opposed genetically modified organisms, and the vote from this side was not monolithic at all.
On the issue of Big Pharma and the mass-drugging of world citizens with patented synthetic chemicals, the science bloggers of course side with the drug companies! Big Pharma and the FDA can do no wrong in their eyes, and the solution to health is, they say, found in prescribing more chemicals to more people!
If these people were living back in the 1950's, they would no doubt side with Big Tobacco, because the "science" at that time said cigarettes were actually good for you! The Journal of the American Medical Association, by the way, actually used to run full-page advertisements for cigarettes. And they were endorsed by doctors and scientists, too.
Actually, no, the science in the 1950s found cigarettes to be a serious risk factor. Tobacco companies funded biased research to argue otherwise, for the purpose of confusing legal and political interests. The scientific interests weren't fooled.
Gee, no wonder they keep losing all the legitimate polls and surveys. Does anyone still believe that modern medicine is working? Does anyone really think that the answer to the problems facing human civilization is to be found in more chemicals, more genetic alterations, more playing God with nature and more corporate control over our food, medicine, genes and ideas? (The science bloggers, by the way, also support corporate ownership of human genes, 20% of which are right now patented by corporations and universities. This is an affront to natural law and a crime against humanity...)
Science bloggers, by the way, do not actually represent science. They worship a cult called "scientism" that pushes a corporate agenda which seeks to concentrate power in the hands of the few while denying food, freedom and health to the people.
I favor corporate ownership of human genes? Wow, you learn something new and wrong every time you read Crazy Mike.
Technology
Comments
Posted by: Ewan R
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November 16, 2010 12:51 PM
Well to be fair 62% against biotechnology as being complementary rather than contradictory to sustainable Ag - not necessarily against biotechnology in general (or even in Ag specifically the way the question was phrased, although that is likely the case - I'm imagining the group of folk who self identify as being for the use of GMOs but only in unsustainable agriculture is pretty small)
Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist
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November 16, 2010 12:59 PM
Mike Adams considers himself a recovering Liberal. he was once a liberal in the sense that he once gave a little girl who had fallen down and skinner her knees his ice cream to make her feel better. he has apparently been trying to atone for that decision ever since.
Posted by: Jeffrey A. Myers
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November 16, 2010 1:00 PM
"Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything. 14% of people know that, 22% of the time."
Posted by: RationalMind
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November 16, 2010 1:01 PM
I would ask PZ that you think about this and realise that if , as you acknowledge, not everyone of your followers supports what you say, and they are rational people then matters are not as clear cut as you think.
Of course there are people who say daft things as you have pointed out but rationally it is pretty inescapable that modern industrialised agriculture is having an enormous detrimental effect on biodiversity.
The problem with GM crops as they are being used is that they facilitate even worse agriculture , controlled by the worst companies and this will lead to further loss in biodiversity.
There is nothing irrational about that.
Of course these polls are useless as you point out. I agree with you there.
Posted by: kirbywarp
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November 16, 2010 1:01 PM
For anybody who's interested, here's an article from the NY Times from March of this year. Apparently there are a ton of patents on the human genome, but there's a possibility that they may start being overturned. Yay.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/business/30gene.html
There may be a more recent article, but this is what came up in a quick search.
Posted by: gillt
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November 16, 2010 1:13 PM
See, Mike asked Sheryl Kirshenbaum and Chris Mooney how to go about summarizing the Pharyngula comments section.
If you squint hard enough you'll find all your biases in plain view.
Posted by: Brownian, Most Vicious & Petty of Pharyngulites
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November 16, 2010 1:18 PM
Yep, that's the mark of a true scientist: don't ask why, just be astonished.
Fuck these stupid fucks.
Posted by: flame821
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November 16, 2010 1:20 PM
I'm against what the big companies who support GM stand for. Basically poor farming practices and patents on everything.
I only plant heritage varieties on my small farm. True, I do not get the huge yields that the big guys do, but I prefer the diversity and the unique tastes and colours associated with the older strains of vegetables. You can see some examples at rareseeds dot com.
Granted going old-school is not for everyone, especially when you're trying to feed a starving nation, and I do understand that. I also understand how fortunate I am to worry about things like biodiversity and politics instead of wondering how I'm going to feed my family. But if all things are equal I would much rather see sustainable, locally owned farms planting heritage/non-copyrighted seeds than having mass farms owned by conglomerates who make and control the use of GM seeds.
Posted by: Xenithrys
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November 16, 2010 1:27 PM
Sounds like Mike only ingests chemicals if they've been infinitely diluted with H2O.
Posted by: scott.anthony.robson
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November 16, 2010 1:27 PM
Whats 20% of an unknown number?
Posted by: iceclimbr
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November 16, 2010 1:37 PM
Take a look at the comments to Mike's "article"...therein lies the real crazies!
Posted by: Doc Wally
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November 16, 2010 1:40 PM
Holy crap, the comments section at naturalnews is a veritable treasure trove of stupid.
And I'd like to add that many of these people who back the patenting of genes are also satan worshipers. (sic)
If there was ever a need for a [citation needed] (and comic sans), this is surely it.
For the record, I do not agree with patenting human genes, or some of Monsanto's shady practices. Biotech is like any other tool available to the human race...it in neutral in the playground of good vs. evil. It's the people utilizing said tool who drive it towards one extreme or the other.
Posted by: Midnight Rambler
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November 16, 2010 1:41 PM
Um...aside from the silly bits above, it's an affront to patent law, which is the primary consideration in this case.Posted by: marcus
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November 16, 2010 1:45 PM
Keep the corporations out my jeans!!11!!1!!11 What?
Oh... Never mind.
Posted by: ibyea
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November 16, 2010 1:51 PM
@RationalMind
PZ was more against the "GMOs are bad because they are unnatural" argument side of things.
Posted by: frog, Inc.
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November 16, 2010 1:54 PM
The scientific interests weren't fooled.
I'd like to see that supported -- really for my own curiosity. How much pressure was there via funding mechanisms? How many basically nonsense pro-tobacco papers were published? Were the standards for anti-tobacco papers unrealistically high, while the the reverse for the pro position?
My intuition says that you're wrong PZ -- but then, I didn't assert that scientific interests were fooled, you asserted the reverse. Do you have evidence for this? Has there been significant historical research into the evolution of tobacco science that could reasonably put this to rest?
It's actually an excellent test-case because the truth of the matter is so one-sided, while the monied interests were so much on the other side, in a case recent enough that it's relevant yet distant enough that it's possible to get objective historical research into it.
How much was the tobacco lobby able to deform the scientific findings? A generic "they weren't fooled" AT ALL is simply unbelievable -- but it would be heartening to see that they were only fooled a small amount.
Posted by: menckensghost
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November 16, 2010 1:58 PM
Wait a minute... are you saying we don't always pick the most evil side of every issue?
Crap.
If this means I have to cancel the Auto de fé of the Believers, someone owes me for the kerosene, the wood, the shiny satin robes and the video production team.
Posted by: beetle, licensed porpupine breeder
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November 16, 2010 2:00 PM
Erm, I'm gonna go with, Yes?
Posted by: christophe-thill.myopenid.com
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November 16, 2010 2:01 PM
Errr... well... yes, lots of people, actually. I remember a certain Pr. Myers who, not long ago, was saved by a prompt intervention of modern medicine.
As for Mike Adams, it will be nice to see him struck with a moderately serious health problem, successfully treated, and forced to eat his words. Although something tells me that he won't let facts or cognitive dissonance beat him, and will still claim that he was actually saved by his herbal teas or something.
Posted by: SC OM
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November 16, 2010 2:02 PM
Allen Brandt, The Cigarette Century
Posted by: Midnight Rambler
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November 16, 2010 2:07 PM
It's pretty amusing that Mike cites Senate Bill 510, a favorite of right wing conspiracy theorists. Somehow they take a clause that says DHS should put out notices if they find out about potentially hazardous food smuggled into the US, and using the famous batshit-logic, figure out that that means no one will be able to save their own seeds from backyard gardens anymore. Because:
It makes perfect sense!!!11l!
PS - how do I use the gumby template? It seems particularly appropriate in this case.
Posted by: viggen
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November 16, 2010 2:07 PM
Reading this stuff gives one a stop and ponder moment.
One of the great problems we humans face at the moment is over-population. Part of the reason we are at such a high population is that our technologies (based on discoveries by science) have relieved us of many of the things that used to kill us. Since many of us no longer die of these historic banes and because most of us don't remember what those banes are like, we no longer remember that those things are bad and are now inventing new bad things to feel angry about. People now no longer remember that science is the source of the ability for many of us to be alive right now and few of us have any idea how to live without the things science does for us behind our backs every day. Ironically, having forgotten what the former ills were like, people are working very hard to dismantle the source of the benefits they rely upon to live now.
I think there's a good chance that our over-population problem will ultimately take care of itself simply because we're (too many of us) dismantling the very thing that allowed it to happen in the first place. Without strengthening education (a lot!) and literally putting these bat-shit crazy nuts in their place --where they're no longer influencing public health apparatuses-- I think we're in trouble in the long term. This is not to say I'm in favor of corporations or government power or anything political; I'm just totally aware that we rely on those foundations simply to live right now. Going back to "our natural roots" means a lot of people dying.
Posted by: RMSC
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November 16, 2010 2:08 PM
The most ironic part of the whole debate is just how positive the effect on farming and the environment GMOs have been. When the savings in reduction of toxic chemicals sprayed, reduction in tillage, savings in fossil fuels, and erosion reduction is figured in, GMOs have been an extraordinary positive to the environment and sustainability.
signed,
A farmer and agricultural consultant
Posted by: Midnight Rambler
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November 16, 2010 2:19 PM
kirbywarp - In the appeal of that case, the government recently filed a brief supporting non-patentability of genes. IOW, opposing the previous patent process. So there's a good chance it will be overturned, which makes sense since it's pretty damn obvious that genes found in nature are a discovery and not an invention.
Posted by: frog, Inc.
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November 16, 2010 2:24 PM
Does anyone still believe that modern medicine is working?
That's actually an interesting question that can't be simply blown off. For folks with lots of cash, it must be -- there mortality rates at the top end have gone down. On the other hand in the US for the lower half of the income spectrum, mortality in the older range hasn't gone down very much -- the poor elderly are only living months longer than they were thirty years ago.
Now, costs have gone massively up for all portions of the income spectrum I believe -- so it seems likely that increased treatment for the poor has not been effective in a scientific sense. Some treatment that is being used (very expensive treatment) must not be scientifically valid, at least under the conditions it's being used, while other treatment, or the same treatment under different conditions of wealth, is scientifically valid.
It's not all so obvious, as some seem to believe. There is some elements of "modern medicine" that are claiming a scientific validity that apparently they shouldn't have, at least specifically under the conditions of poverty in the US (meaning bottom 50%). Or they are valid, but the cost of getting them is damaging enough that it outweighs the actual benefits -- and if we include cost in terms of effectiveness, we're right back at not really valid in context.
Posted by: consciousness razor
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November 16, 2010 2:26 PM
At the grocery store checkout, where my choices are paper or plastic, or bringing my own reusable bags, I always opt for baby-eating and torturing small furry woodland creatures.Actually, that's not entirely true. I bring canvas bags. I just wanted to try to fit in around here, even though I've been around for years. Is there some sort of manual or scriptural reference around here, by which I can gain the secret wisdoms concerning the proper worship of all things Evil and Scientistic?
Posted by: Richard Wolford
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November 16, 2010 2:36 PM
Strawman. Modern medicine is a success in terms of disease prevention and treatment. You've brought up the process of distributing these modern treatments and beaten it down. I would agree that we need to take care of everyone with the best medical care available, yet any attempt to socialize medicine is demonized by my fellow US citizens.
So modern medicine is a success. Delivery of modern medicine is well sub par.
Posted by: transmogrifier
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November 16, 2010 2:39 PM
I generally happily participate in "Pharyngulation" of online polls - especially the creationist polls. However in this case I hesitated because my lack of knowledge about the issues involved prevents me from voting either way. Based of what I have read, the technology of genetic modification in itself is nothing different than the horizontal gene transfer that sometimes naturally occurs. I have no knowledge about whether the end results are safe for consumption though. Comment#23 mentions reduction in toxic chemicals sprayed. But I have read in other places that it is not as black and white as that.
I am also hesitant to vote for GMOs because of questionable coroporate practices at the companies which promote these products. It would be great if PZ and others who are knowledgeable about the technology give us a primer on what GMOs are, what do studies show their effect is on humans, on the ecosystem etc. This is ScienceBlogs... give us some science about GMOs.
Posted by: alysonmiers
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November 16, 2010 2:40 PM
Did "playing God" ever mean anything outside of "don't make us uncomfortable"?
Posted by: Ewan R
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November 16, 2010 2:45 PM
Way back when it meant something rather special.
Posted by: reindeerflotilla
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November 16, 2010 2:48 PM
Scientism! That's scientism, Adams says.
I'm pretty sure that "scientism" was a term made up by creationists in the 1980s-1990s, in response to a man named Carl Sagan... who nearly put bullshit out of business permanently.
Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/hMTnrH8JkegRx6gXqRPC43XjYan1vnC7vw--#c00c5
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November 16, 2010 2:50 PM
Well, as Viggen points out, our population will eventually increase beyond our ability to feed everyone. Old Mike would be happy if we start now, I suppose. Everybody go back to hunting and gathering--but no hunting those poor animals--and no gathering anything that's been modified by humanity.
Then we'd be in harmony with Mother Earth, living brief lives amongst the piles of emaciated corpses.
If these people had to spend a month or two actually hungry, or watching their children starve, they'd see why we developed this sort of thing in the first place.
Sustainable agriculture only works with a sustainable population eating it. And few people volunteer to starve to death for balance.
Posted by: consciousness razor
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November 16, 2010 2:59 PM
alysonmiers, I suppose at one point, it may also meant something like "plot device". ;)
But seriously, your description seems accurate enough. Yahwehbots already believe they're made in Gog's image, so why these same folks should believe it's also bad thing is sometimes not entirely clear to me.
It may have something do with their desire to be affirmed of the Truth behind their persecution (need not be real, but in the "spirit world"), contempt for Evil forces which have the hubris to try to dethrone their nonexistent deity, and superstitions along the lines of sympathetic magic.
Posted by: SallyStrange, Spawn of Cthulhu
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November 16, 2010 3:05 PM
Consider that the targets of genetic engineering have been primarily corn and soybeans thus far. Why? Because those are staple commodity crops. Why are they staple commodity crops? Because of the utterly wretched way our Congress administers farm and crop subsidies. Why are corn and soybeans so important? Because, their prices artificially depressed by subsidies, large corporate agribusiness companies can buy up corn and soybeans and transform them into meat or highly processed food-like substances (e.g. Twinkies, Coco Puffs) and make a hefty profit that way. (Much better than selling fresh fruits and veggies, there’s no profit margin there.)
Were it not for fundamentally unsustainable agricultural policy, it’s unlikely that engineering corn and soybeans to be resistant to herbicides, or to produce their own pesticides, would have been a financially interesting project for Monsanto et al. in the first place.
I think the results of the poll were quite reasonable. The question was not, “Are GMOs inherently dangerous?” That’s obviously not true. The question was, “Are GMOs complementary with sustainable agriculture, or contradictory?” As things currently stand, GMOs have only a tenuous relationship to sustainable agriculture practices. The potential exists that they might one day be an integral part of truly sustainable agriculture, but then that wasn’t the question either.
Posted by: Silič O'Nopolitanopoulos, Färschdbischuf Beesknees aus Ulm und Klein Elguth, Elector Pharynguline.
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November 16, 2010 3:05 PM
At least the right people won the Physics.org awards. (Ethan Siegel and The Guardian.)
Posted by: Dude... Real Men Watch Ponies!
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November 16, 2010 3:09 PM
I would say the poll is a bit vague (or people read to much into it).
By itself, it is a right statement, biotechnology does compliment sustainable agriculture (as PZ stated before, agriculture IS biotech).
However, in the current climate, people probably read that as whether the CURRENT implementation of biotech is complimentary or contradictory to sustainable agriculture.
Posted by: frog, Inc.
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November 16, 2010 3:20 PM
wolford: So modern medicine is a success. Delivery of modern medicine is well sub par.
Not a strawman. I wasn't question modern biology -- but modern medicine. Modern medicine can not be separated from "how it's run" -- that's like trying to say that engineering is great because the physics are great, regardless of application.
If a treatment doesn't work under the real conditions it's used under -- it's "delivery" -- then the treatment doesn't work in that context. That's an indictment of the treatment, even if the biology is reasonable under some conditions -- they just happen to be wrong under the conditions of poor delivery which leads to a different outcome.
The problem for the poor in the US isn't lack of delivery -- it's a bad delivery process that leads to misdiagnoses, mistreatment, overtreatment and semi-random pharmaceutical treatment ("case management" where you just keep on switching pharms until the patient gets better or dies).
That's an indictment of a specific subset of modern medicine -- and reducing modern medicine to the underlying lab research is much more of a strawman, a misstatement of the problem, than my statement could ever be.
Medicine is actual treatment. It's not a theoretical body of research like biology or physics. It's a craft like engineering, not a science per se.
If a carpenter doesn't actually sell furniture, his theoretical basis is irrelevant. The proof is in the pudding.
The science can be right in the lab, and yet be wrong as medicine qua medicine, just as physics doesn't imply good engineering.
Posted by: Escuerd
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November 16, 2010 3:26 PM
Of course not. No good has ever come from chemicals or genetic alterations. Oh wait.
Trying to control our environment isn't so much "playing God" as "being human". With regard to corporate control, and such things as patenting genes, I think I'd generally agree with his vaguely expressed sentiment.
Even if this were true, what would it matter? Yes, science can get things wrong. That doesn't mean that it isn't the best method we have for understanding the world.
The idea that anything less than absolute certainty is worthless seems to be an underlying theme of lots of anti-scientific thinking.
Ahahaha!
That point is almost as amusing as it is irrelevant.
Posted by: frog, Inc.
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November 16, 2010 3:27 PM
Let me forward a case that's terribly common. Many folks, particularly elderly, are prescribed 5, 10, 15 pharmaceuticals.
Now each one in isolation may be shown to be effective in the lab. But anyone with any scientific experience in biological systems knows that predictability of the systems behavior goes down at least exponentially as the number of pharms are applied. So, prescribing 3 medications simultaneously is very unlikely to be scientifically valid -- much less the 5, 10, 15 that one sees occurring in practice.
That's a scientifically invalid treatment -- even if the components are scientifically valid. That's where you can't isolate delivery from the biology. The treatment is the delivery of scientific knowledge, and not the scientifically knowledge per se, just as carpentry is the delivery of physical knowledge and not the physical knowledge per se.
Posted by: Midnight Rambler
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November 16, 2010 3:30 PM
frog - The thing is, you're taking something that Mike is saying and using it in a different way. He actually is questioning modern biology. The conspiracy theory bit about SB510 is all about how the evil government is going to take away our magical supplements, colloidal silver, and magnets (it doesn't matter how the fuck they work!) to benefit Big Pharma(tm).
Posted by: frog, Inc.
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November 16, 2010 3:37 PM
@Escuerd: Even if this were true, what would it matter? Yes, science can get things wrong. That doesn't mean that it isn't the best method we have for understanding the world.
As a matter of fact, it would matter. It would be evidence that one should be more rather than less conservative in accepting scientific innovation, and instead wait for longer periods for accepting the practical applications of science.
If science is highly deformable in the short term by economic interests but not in the long term, changing our behavior in response to changing scientific findings should wait for those short term deformations to be removed.
On the other hand, if science quickly corrects for economic and cultural biases, then we should quickly respond by changing our behavior in response to changing scientific findings.
It's terribly empirically important to find out at what time scale specific sciences are true. And it would have to be specific sciences, since there's no reason to believe that the time frames for physics, biology and sociology would be the same.
The principle is that most of our actions, personal, social, political, economic and so forth can not be scientifically justified. We just don't know enough -- and we can never know enough, given that we must make choice in the face of problems that are simply unintegrable, that no solution is possible at the resolution we need it. That's the simple truth -- so we have to use other principles than simple scientific validity, one of which is that if we've been doing things one way, why change a good thing?
Posted by: Gregory Greenwood
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November 16, 2010 3:42 PM
Biotechnology is all too often conflated with the biotech industry. You don't have to be a Monsanto shill to believe that genetic science can benefit mankind, whatever morons like Adams may say.
This is, in large part, an issue of image. When dealing with a public perception of biotech that is frankly hysterical, and comes close to treating Frankenstein as a documentary, you are fighting an uphill battle from the start. Popular culture is saturated with 'mad-scientist' imagry, and genetic science has, for Hollywood, taken on the role of primary-cause-of-kill-monster-creation-and-death-among-improbably-attractive-persons-aged-17-to-25 that used to be occupied by unspecified 'radiation'.
This should be a trivial matter - its just pop culture, afterall. Good for entertainment, not so good for information. Unfortunately, popular culture can readily influence public perception, especially when the statements of some movie star/sports person/singer are accorded more weight in the public mind than the considered consensus of the foremost scientific minds in the field. The debate has been poisoned, and know-nothings with a platform are drowning out those who actually speak from an informed position. The evidence now takes second place to the ongoing 'who can shout the loudest' contest among conspiracy theorists and panic-mongers.
Biotech is an easy target. It is something that most people have only a hazy understanding of*, and the fact that they cannot grasp its processes easily leads to the usual response to the unknown - they fear it, and that which is feared is always assumed to be bad. So bad that it would be better all round if those nasty scientists, with all their high-falutin' degrees, just stopped doing it...
Then, of course, it is only a matter of time before the fundies bring out their trump card;
"This is scientists playing god, and playing god is really bad, 'cause... its playing god, you know? So now you don't only have to worry about genetically engineered kill-monsters (you just know that the government is breeding up that big monster from Cloverfield in a lab in Area 51, amiright?), but you have to worry about Don Yahweh being really ticked off that we are trespassing on his turf. Guy's got a crazy temper, just look at what he did to Ancient Egypt..."
Unfortunately, there are plenty of people who are so indoctrinated into the idea that genetic science is knowledge 'not meant for man' (cue Twilight Zone theme music), that they readily buy into arguments not much more sophisticated than the one outlined above.
* In the interests of full disclosure, I should state that my own understanding of genetic science is modest, but I am attempting to rectify my ignorance, and I strive not to allow a lack of knowledge to become a knee-jerk fear response.
Posted by: frog, Inc.
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November 16, 2010 3:44 PM
MR: The thing is, you're taking something that Mike is saying and using it in a different way. He actually is questioning modern biology.
Well, Mike may be an idiot -- that's not unusual. Most people are idiots, as a matter of fact.
But they often are intuiting problems and simply missing the proper target. By just blowing them off, rather than finding the right target, their dumb-ass propaganda gains ground.
If you put it as a choice between Orac's asinine comments and Mike's stupidity, well the false dilemma means that politically Mike is going to win, which means no one will deal with the fact that bad medicine, non-scientific medicine, is ongoing in the name of "scientific medicine".
We'll get woo precisely because we ignore the woo's motivations -- which is that really folks are having money taken from them and getting crap as treatment. Often they're better off just giving their money away to cranks and chiropractors, rather than an MD who will put you on seven pharms. Shit, all the chiropractor can do is break your neck -- we know how to treat that better than random interaction stew.
Posted by: lordsetar
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November 16, 2010 3:51 PM
frog #37:
This is nonsense - you're saying that because people can't get the treatment, it doesn't work. Except that the treatments do work...people just can't get them because the hgealthcare system (like pretty much everything in the US) is built to make a profit rather than to help people.
Faults with the system =/= faults with the treatment. It's the system that doesn't work, not the treatment.
Posted by: lordsetar
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November 16, 2010 3:57 PM
frog #39:
Because we can't test what happens when we start adding more to the mix, right? We can only test one of them at a time, right?
Current calculation: 53.4% probability of frog, Inc being a concern troll.
Posted by: frog, Inc.
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November 16, 2010 4:08 PM
lordsetar: This is nonsense - you're saying that because people can't get the treatment, it doesn't work. Except that the treatments do work...people just can't get them because the hgealthcare system
That's nonsense -- because the problem in the US is rarely that people don't have any access to the treatment, but that the treatment actually doesn't work in context. Over-treatment is as often a problem as under-treatment. Most of the bottom 50% do have health insurance -- they're getting the wrong treatment, treatment that minimize physician time, rather than lack of treatment. Since it may be practically impossible to give everyone the "rich people treatment" -- then one must question the treatment as a public good.
If you can't get clean needles, then injection vaccines are a bad treatment under those conditions. You're a bad doctor if that's the treatment you prescribe under those conditions.
If your patient already is taking six pharmaceuticals, and you add one more thinking "well, it works in tests" -- then the treatment is bad in that context, and you're a bad doctor for prescribing it.
This is as bad nonsense as saying well, since a bridge design works over the Hudson, we should use the same bridge design over the Straits of Gibralter, just scaled up. The bridge design has to include the costs and the very possibility of proper implementation.
Medical treatments can not be differentiated from the system through which they get delivered. It's nonsense to say so -- simply illiterate nonsense that fails to distinguish between a science and a craft.
Posted by: Dude... Real Men Watch Ponies!
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November 16, 2010 4:23 PM
Just going to nitpick a little. A lot of bad (alongside with good) did come from chemicals and genetic alterations. Chlorine gas, Sarin gas, Agent Orange.Science gives us answers. Just that for some of us, there are answers we really don't want to know.
As in, how to kill a lot of people very quickly and horribly, while keeping the infrastructures intact? Sarin gas.
Posted by: frog, Inc.
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November 16, 2010 4:30 PM
lordsetar: Because we can't test what happens when we start adding more to the mix, right? We can only test one of them at a time, right?
Current calculation: 53.4% probability of frog, Inc being a concern troll.
Oh, I'm not a concern troll. I openly think you're an idiot.
How the hell are you going to go over the full spectrum of usages and interactions of three pharmaceuticals? You know that in general, there can be no expectation that the interactions are monotonic, right, much less linear?
No -- you can't test with a live human being a five, seven or ten dimensional space to find an optimal mixture without risking falling into a damn hole that kills the patient. And you can't do large-scale testing of all possible, or even all likely, combinations -- that quickly blows up to thousand dimensional and up problems.
To even suggest that implies that you're the kind of mathematical illiterate who doesn't even understand the problems of searching even a three-dimensional space, or even the limitations of calculating single-field three-body problems, much less biological problems with numerous unknown fields.
For three-dimensions in a biological system, look at this: http://pescini.dottorato.disco.unimib.it/wiki/data/media/scheduler/apo/martegani/yaffe.pdf
You have to be a real dumb-ass to think that you can realistically search the space without killing your patient. Fortunately, most damage is chronic, so there's no one to blame in particular.
Being polite isn't a concern troll -- I wasn't baiting, but I will point out arrogant morons.
Posted by: Wren
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November 16, 2010 4:36 PM
Is the US the only country with modern medicine?
I'm just wondering because it is only the system in the US that is under discussion here.
I'm in the UK and grew up in the US and I was fairly certain they both use modern medicine but with a different delivery system, but maybe I'm totally wrong. Or maybe Frog, Inc is yet another person who cannot see beyond the American borders.
Posted by: lordsetar
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November 16, 2010 4:36 PM
You're claiming that the objective standard of care in the United States is lower than in other countries? Seriously? So you're claiming that doctors don't account for how drugs may interact with one another when taken together? And thus are overprescribing?[citation needed]
Posted by: Giliell, connaiseuse des choses bonnes
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November 16, 2010 4:37 PM
It really bothers me to be found remotely in the same vicinity of an opinion as such people.
Yes, I do have concerns about GM farming. Most of them are political, some are scientifical.
That doesn't mean I reject science. Neither does it mean that I eat babies, that's just no rational way to get your food.
Posted by: Cath the Canberra Cook
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November 16, 2010 4:40 PM
So Frog Inc, are you saying that modern medicine works in Canada but not in the US?
Posted by: Scorpy1
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November 16, 2010 4:41 PM
I'm astonished that a crank of Adams' excessively hyperbolic stature didn't use his astonishment, expressed with exclamation points, as a debate response more in that piece!!!!
Posted by: Amphiox, OM
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November 16, 2010 4:47 PM
Seriously? You wouldn't want to know. You would prefer to keep your head in the sand, completely ignorant of how others might try to do such a thing and therefore utterly ignorant of what feasible options you might have of preventing them from doing so?
Posted by: Dude... Real Men Watch Ponies!
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November 16, 2010 4:53 PM
Seriously, I would prefer if no one ever figure that out.Why do you think we have international treaties prohibit development of any bio-weapons? Because we really don't want to know if we can create weaponized version of diseases.
Thou you're right, that's probably us collectively hiding our head in sand.
Posted by: Gregory Greenwood
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November 16, 2010 4:53 PM
UberFubarious @ 47;
The knowledge itself is not the problem, its the application it is put to. To modify a common phrase; science doesn't kill people, people kill people...
Both a dagger and a scalpel are pieces of edged, forged metal, but they are put to different uses. Should operations not happen because a person can use a blade as a weapon?
Posted by: Dude... Real Men Watch Ponies!
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November 16, 2010 4:59 PM
I understand that. But I was referring to knowledge of a specific application. It's great we can use bio-technology for good purposes, but I would prefer if we don't encourage people to use it for really harmful purposes.
An extension to your analogy is that I'm happy that people figure out how to use dagger and scalpel to perform life-saving surgery. But I would REALLY prefer if we don't encourage people that they should try stabbing someone with it to kill them.
Posted by: KG
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November 16, 2010 5:02 PM
Wow! I hadn't realised things had advanced that far! Does this biotechnoilogy also insult overgrazing, ridicule biodynamics, and condemn perverse subsidies?
Posted by: Dude... Real Men Watch Ponies!
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November 16, 2010 5:08 PM
Selective breedings (which we have done for millenias) are biotechnology. The reason our bannana has no seed? Biotech. Large apples? Biotech. Large corn kernels? Biotech. Making cows more docile, castrating bulls, selective breeding for better meat/milk production? Biotech. Used correctly, biotech can compliment sustainable agriculture. I would even argue that sustainable agriculture is IMPOSSIBLE without biotech.Posted by: Dude... Real Men Watch Ponies!
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November 16, 2010 5:10 PM
#58
My bad, used the wrong word.
"complement", not "compliment".
Posted by: KG
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November 16, 2010 5:15 PM
Gregory Greenwood@42,
Unusually for you, that's a bunch of crap. Public attitudes to GMOs are much more complex and nuanced than you suggest. See for example Public views on GMOs: deconstructing the myths.
Posted by: greame
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November 16, 2010 5:15 PM
sorry, off topic, but Crazy Mike's Sewer Pipe of Misinformation has got to be the funniest thing i've read all day. Thanks PZ! I needed a chuckle.
Posted by: Gregory Greenwood
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November 16, 2010 5:16 PM
UberFubarious @ 57;
What 'really harmful purposes' sare you refering to? Genetically engineered crops may well be vital in feeding the global population over the course of the next century. This is s tangible benefit, whereas the supposed threat in this scenario still seems pretty ephemeral.
I am having some difficulty with you interpretation of this analagy. In what way do GM crops equate to training in blade combat? How does a new agricultural tool with the potential to save millions, perhaps billions, of lives and quite possibly prevent warfare over arable land equate to a terrible threat?
Posted by: Cath the Canberra Cook
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November 16, 2010 5:22 PM
Gilliell, I only eat free-range, biodynamic, not genetically modified babies. You can't be too careful!
Posted by: jefrir
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November 16, 2010 5:28 PM
frog, Inc.
So basically no-one should ever be on more than about three medications, no matter what the indications?
Posted by: Gregory Greenwood
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November 16, 2010 5:31 PM
KG @ 61;
Thanks for the link. I still think that genetic science is being turned into an artificial 'hot button' issue by activists, and some of these activists are capitalizing on anti-scientific sentiment in some quarters of the public.
There are valid concerns as to the misuse of the science, but there is no denying the existence of some groups that oppose the very existence of biotech in the first place for reasons outside strict rationality. The 'playing god' angle has been used on more than one occasion.
Posted by: frog, Inc.
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November 16, 2010 5:36 PM
lordsetar: You're claiming that the objective standard of care in the United States is lower than in other countries? Seriously?
What other EMPIRICAL measure do you want other than mortality due to illness? Are you seriously saying that there is some other OBJECTIVE measure of medicine than outcome?
Really?
So you're claiming that doctors don't account for how drugs may interact with one another when taken together? And thus are overprescribing?
[citation needed]
Always the refuge of the imbecile, "citation needed" on matters of observation. It's a simple question, doofus: do doctors ever prescribe more than three medication simultaneously?
I don't need a citation to go to my local pharmacy and look at the pill boxes that many seniors need to track their pharmacopeias. That's an observable.
There is no damn way -- none at all -- that a doctor can prescribe to a patient more than 3 drugs and be taking drug interactions into account to a level of scientific assuredness. And no, looking into the PDR and seeing that there's no known interaction is idiotic -- given that the existence of the interaction may only become apparent in the face of multiple other drugs. All they're doing is eliminating a few interaction known to generally kill people -- interactions that in fact may disappear when additional drugs are added to the stew.
Sometimes MDs may have to act non-scientifically, try to do the best they can in the face of ignorance. But the easily verifiable fact that a not insignificant part of the population in the US is taking 5 drugs and more shows that this isn't the case. All you have to do is just ask some old people.
Posted by: llewelly
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November 16, 2010 5:38 PM
Midnight Rambler | November 16, 2010 2:07 PM:
This:
<blockquote style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255) url(http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/tiny_gumby_trans.gif) no-repeat scroll 0pt 0pt; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; font-family: Comic Sans MS; padding-left: 50px;">That is why I pointed out God has a Holy, Righteous Penis.</blockquote>
Results in:
Posted by: cuco3
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November 16, 2010 5:39 PM
My understanding of the tobacco science situation is that the research supported by the tobacco companies was never intended to have a significant impact in the real scientific community. It was merely to give lobbyists and the political shills a pretext for preventing unsympathetic legislation. Something at which it was quite effective.
The same approach has been adopted by special interests over other issues; notably climate change.
The real lesson is not that we need to be more cautious about accepting scientific findings - although that doesn't mean we should throw all caution to the wind - but that our governments need to do a better job of understanding science. And perhaps that we ought to lynch a few lobbyists from time to time.
Posted by: frog, Inc.
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November 16, 2010 5:43 PM
Wren: I'm in the UK and grew up in the US and I was fairly certain they both use modern medicine but with a different delivery system, but maybe I'm totally wrong. Or maybe Frog, Inc is yet another person who cannot see beyond the American borders.
They clearly have different outcomes -- so they're not exactly the same "modern medicine". It's fair to compare different sorts of modern medicine -- as long as we don't elide the differences merely because we want to.
The delivery system is essential part of medicine. So, it's entirely possible (and actually appears to be an empirical fact) that UK modern medicine is superior to the American subtype.
There isn't an American biology or a Chinese biology or a South African biology -- but there is American medicine and Chinese medicine and SA medicine. The former are sciences and are universal -- the latter are crafts BUILT ON science, and are particular.
Or to put it another way -- it doesn't make any sense at all to say that X is a "socialist science" or a "capitalist science". It would be nonsense. Science is science and not a science delivery system. But it makes perfect sense to distinguish between "socialist medical treatment" and "capitalist medical treatment" and compare the results.
Posted by: lykex
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November 16, 2010 6:12 PM
This relates to something I've noticed, first in politics, but increasingly elsewhere: The more I know about a given subject, the more I realize that most of the people talking about it are full of shit.
Posted by: frog, Inc.
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November 16, 2010 6:18 PM
@jefrir: So basically no-one should ever be on more than about three medications, no matter what the indications?
A year or so there was a physics paper modeling the solar system out a few millions of years. They averaged a collision between earth and another planet after a million years.
Now, this is a really simple system. It's one field following a very well understood law depending only on two initial variables per body, right? And yet either it can't be modeled worth a damn, or the last 4 billion years is an incredible fluke.
So, basically, I would be very suspicious of the usage of multiple medicines. Would you run experiments where you're altering 5 variables simultaneously and can only get a single running chronological record? Would you try to guess the underlying function -- particularly when you don't control almost any of the other variables and have to guess corrections for them?
I don't see how you can, in general, map indications onto a large number of medications. I know that many doctors do -- but I am suspicious of delusion, of science-as-jargon rather than actual scientific validity.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM
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November 16, 2010 6:20 PM
No, asshole, asking you for a citation for a specific claim is not a "refuge of the imbicle." You've been throwing around some rather dubious assertions so asking for a citation is not unreasonable.
I've got several unrelated medical conditions right now, both chronic and acute. The medication(s) for one condition has no effect on another condition. When I started taking one medication recently I was told to stop taking another because of synergistic effects. So I guess your claim of overprescription doesn't pertain in one case.
So, where's your evidence to support your claims? This is put up or shut up time.
Posted by: tomh
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November 16, 2010 6:39 PM
frog, Inc @ #25
the poor elderly are only living months longer than they were thirty years ago.
Thirty years? You think modern medicine was invented in the last thirty years? That's just silly. Go back a hundred, or two hundred years, before antibiotics, pre-vaccines, and compare longevity for the elderly poor. Or anyone else. You'll see a rather larger difference.
Posted by: lugubriousness
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November 16, 2010 6:42 PM
@frog: But it makes perfect sense to distinguish between "socialist medical treatment" and "capitalist medical treatment" and compare the results.
Medical treatment differs between countries, but modern medicine is the knowledge and techniques used to treat people.
'Friendly socialist' Sweden uses the same modern medicine as 'evil capitalist' America. The reason people in Sweden may get better medical treatment is because of the socialist system set in place by the socialist government. America doesn't have a lesser 'version' of modern medicine, they just have different criteria for who is allowed access to it.
So to answer the question you originally addressed: Yes. Modern medicine does work. Your system of government, however, might not.
Posted by: potsdamsc
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November 16, 2010 6:45 PM
Yes, taking into account that most pharmaceuticals produced nowadays are tailored to specific pathways and proteins/receptors. Most receptors (the vast majority of pharmaceuticals act on cell surface receptors, especially GPCR) have different isoforms for each cell type and tend to have specific and partitioned tasks.
While some substances with unknown receptors or ligands are still being used nowadays (paracetamol for instance), the relatively widespread belief that pharmacology is still a game of trying random chemicals until we find an active one is pretty inaccurate.
Posted by: F
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November 16, 2010 6:45 PM
frog, Inc. #16
I'd like to see that supported -- really for my own curiosity. How much pressure was there via funding mechanisms? How many basically nonsense pro-tobacco papers were published? Were the standards for anti-tobacco papers unrealistically high, while the the reverse for the pro position?
Well, look them up, then. See also the history of asbestos. (The insurance companies damn well knew, science later backed up the actuarial stats, but tobacco and asbestos interests fought science and legislation.)
Posted by: Gregory Greenwood
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November 16, 2010 6:48 PM
lykex @ 71;
I had a particularly accute moment of self-knowledge about ten years ago when I realized that most of what I believed at the time had very little connection to reality, and far more to the regurgitation of the uncritically absorbed positions of various talking heads.
Once I started looking into things for myself and going a little beyond the usual mainstream media on many issues, I came to realize just how much 'common knowledge' was so far off base as to be quite shocking. I became aware of things like climate change denialism and how its proponents are often all but immune to reason and tend to view the available evidence itself as just another aspect of some illuminati-esque grand conspiracy. As the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq unfolded, I started to question whether the government was being entirely honest with the public, and I came to realize that, far from being a virtue, the common conception of 'patriotism' was often a toxic thing.
A couple of years earlier, when I was just starting university, I actually encountered feminist thought for the first time without the formerly all pervasive filter of my parents hostility toward 'angry' women, and I saw that I actually agreed with much of what was being put forward by people who wanted to dismantle the mechanisms of oppressive patriarchy in our society. I engaged with issues of gay rights for the first time, and came to see just how ingrained mindless homophobia still is in our society.
It was a disconcerting experience to realize that, up until that point, I had not really been thinking for myself, and that this was a skill that I needed to develop, rather than possessing as an innate faculty. To be honest, I look back on my former naivete with a measure of horror, and I consider myself lucky to have become aware of just how little I really know. Rectifying this situation is still a work in progress
I suppose it is an experience that most people go through at some point in their lives.
Posted by: frog, Inc.
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November 16, 2010 6:59 PM
Tis Himself: No, asshole, asking you for a citation for a specific claim is not a "refuge of the imbicle." You've been throwing around some rather dubious assertions so asking for a citation is not unreasonable.
Oh mighy one -- please tell me how it's necessary to cite that in the US, it's common practice for patients to be on 5, 6, 10 medications?
Asking for citations is fair for facts that don't require direct observation. But I don't need to pull a cite to state -- "There is a sun in the sky". Only an imbecile would claim that I needed a cite there -- and only an asshole would back him up on that.
Are you disputing what you can see by going to any pharmacy and spending half an hour there? Because that was my claim -- that many folks are taking a large number of pharmaceuticals.
If you want to go dubious claim by dubious claim -- be my guest. But pulling the usual pharynguloid bullshit of making wide claims like "scientific interests weren't fooled", for example, without citation -- facts not obvious to the naked eye, and yet require citations for what is sitting before your own eyes -- is just imbecilic.
Changing the standard evidence on the basis of your own prejudice is a prime example of politics over science. Let me see -- the only person who asked PZ for a cite on that one was -- oh wait -- it was me! Amazing, ain't it? And I'm the only one who will not pretend that it's purely disinterested science -- that I actually have intuitions and am asking questions from a point of view. Amazing how that is, isn't it?
Where issue could be fairly pulled on me is on my definitions -- folks may want to collapse medicine with biology and separate it from it's practice. I think that's a useless use of words. If medicine is coextensive with biology, then it's just "human physiology". We don't treat engineering as a "practical physics" but as a unique field very distinct from physics which draws on physics.
The distribution of treatment -- the choice of which treatments get used under what conditions -- do differ by economic systems and political structures. That's a worthy discussion -- of how modern medicine in it's varieties depends on a functional system of government.
But "modern medicine == human biology"? Meh, if you want to call it that, you're just playing word games.
But that's what we're getting here -- playing stupid little word games so we can beat up on the woo-meisters. So fuckin' impressive. The usual big geniuses beating up on astrologers. Call me impressed.
Posted by: Midnight Rambler
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November 16, 2010 7:34 PM
Of course, that wasn't what you said, or what was being asked for. What you claimed was:
That is a baldfaced assertion that is very likely to be complete bullshit. I already take two medications simultaneously for one condition. When I had an infection that required antibiotics that made it four. If I had high blood pressure as well that would make it five. Nothing makes those invalid to be taken together unless they actually interact with each other.Posted by: lugubriousness
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November 16, 2010 7:37 PM
@frog
Let's try this again. Modern medicine already has a definition, you can't just make up your own. It is all the rigorously tested knowledge of techniques and technologies and drugs to diagnose and treat patients. This knowledge doesn't differ between countries or continents. The only thing you're arguing is politics.
And as for the "taking lots of different drugs inevitably causes harmful synergistic effects" thing:
as #76 potsdamsc said, most drugs nowadays target specific pathways or receptors. So we do have a pretty good idea of how different drugs will interact (not very much at all) and are constantly updating our knowledge of what combinations of drugs may be unfavorable (and hence advice against combining them).
Posted by: tomh
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November 16, 2010 7:41 PM
frog, Inc. wrote:
But that's what we're getting here -- playing stupid little word games...
The only one playing word games is you. Medicine, whether modern or ancient, is the science of restoring or preserving health, or substances used in the treatment of disease. The word does not encompass political systems, or distribution systems, or anything else you want it to mean. Those have different words to describe them. Redefining the word medicine to suit your own agenda is childish. The indisputable fact is that medicine does work, and modern medicine works far better than ancient medicine.
Posted by: ibyea
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November 16, 2010 7:46 PM
@Frog Inc.
"So you're claiming that doctors don't account for how drugs may interact with one another when taken together? And thus are overprescribing?
[citation needed]"
I get the impression, from reading this quote, that the citation is for the claim that they are not taking account of drug interactions, not whether there are people taking lots of medication. Furthermore, not everyone goes to the pharmacy and checks people out to see how many different kinds of pills they are getting.
Although I know overprescription exists, I don't know by how much. Do you have a good web site to send me to that tells me by how much?
Posted by: John Morales
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November 16, 2010 7:49 PM
[meta]
What tomh wrote!
--
Also, this medicine thing is a derail.
Posted by: Amphiox, OM
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November 16, 2010 7:55 PM
"Taking lots of different drugs and have adverse interactions between those drugs" DOES NOT EQUAL overprescription. One has to also consider what would happen if the patient was not taking all those drugs. Only if the patient is better off taking fewer or no drugs, does it count as "overprescription". If not, then it the adverse interaction is a negative consequence that we accept, with due deliberation, in exchange for a greater benefit.
Posted by: Amphiox, OM
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November 16, 2010 7:59 PM
There are lots of randomized controlled trials that routinely use combination therapy of 2 or 3 simultaneous medications. So the state by frog that "prescribing 3 medications simultaneously is very unlikely to be scientifically valid" is baldly untrue, unless he comes around and cites specific examples.
Posted by: Amphiox, OM
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November 16, 2010 8:05 PM
Note to frog:
medicine =/= medical system
One is a set of tools that can be applied by the other. Both are a set of tools that people and societies use to solve a variety of biological challenges.
(And BTW, the US does not actually have a medical system. It has a riot of self-contradictory, mutually antagonistic, semi-incompatible, and badly regulated components masquerading as a medical system)
Posted by: duynguyenm
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November 16, 2010 8:05 PM
Look on the left hand side of Mike Adams' NaturalNews under "Support NaturalNews sponsors." One of them is titled "How to Cure Almost Any Cancer at Home for $5.15 a Day."
At home, yes, no need for crazy doctors and greedy Big Pharma. Get them now before they're gone.
Posted by: nejishiki
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November 16, 2010 8:06 PM
shorter frog, Inc:
"But, man, they're like taking all these drugs. These chemicals. Who knows what's going on, man... it makes my head hurt."
The 'it's unknown, therefore dangerous and scary' mental reflex in action. Go play elsewhere.
Posted by: Gregory Greenwood
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November 16, 2010 8:07 PM
frog, Inc.;
I know that anecdotes are not very persuasive, but my mother suffers from both blood coagulation issues that leave her vulnerable to strokes, and a chronic cardiac condition. Both of these conditions require daily doses of multiple medications, and she takes half a dozen tablets twice a day.
The balance of her medications has to be exact, lest the anti-coagulants interfere with her heart medication. She lives on a biochemical knife-edge, and if the medical profession was as incapable of combining medicines as you imply, then it is very likely that she would have died at some point over the last twelve years that she has been on this regimen.
There are some things that we know she must avoid. She cannot have steroids of any kind (because her heart rate is controlled) and as a result she cannot take most types of anti-inflammatories, which makes dealing with her arthritis problematic. She also cannot have aspirin because of its blood-thinning properties. Other than a relatively short list of specific danger items, however, she can take whatever is necessary, because most drugs are known not react with her medication.
Some of her medicines are very dangerous to people with normal blood properties and cardiac functions at the doses she has to take them. Her Warfarin tablets spring to mind. She often jokes that she has to take what would be lethal dose of rat poison, to a normal person, to survive.
I think the age of shot-in-the-dark medicine is largely behind us. This is what the extensive process of medical trials (administered by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence [N.I.C.E] in the UK) before a drug is approved for use are for, afterall. For the most part, the effects of drugs on the body, and their interaction with other drugs, are known and taken into account when prescribing treatment.
Posted by: GODis10-7
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November 16, 2010 8:10 PM
In my experience the least healthy seniors aren't the ones on 7 medications, they're the seniors that are prescribed 7 medications and take none of them on a regular basis. This is, however, from my small sample size working in health care in an area that the poorest receive some of the best access to health care.
Posted by: JoshK
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November 16, 2010 8:40 PM
GG, #78
To be honest, I look back on my former naivete with a measure of horror, and I consider myself lucky to have become aware of just how little I really know. Rectifying this situation is still a work in progress
I suppose it is an experience that most people go through at some point in their lives.
Great post.
The trickiest part is, I don't want to substitute one talking head for another one, if you follow me. Sometimes I feel as if I'm in this constant state of re, re, and re-evaluation.
Posted by: Samantha Vimes
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November 16, 2010 8:48 PM
fro, In, here are the things you need citations for:
Your assertion that the poor do get treatment. You claim the problem lies not with access, but duration of time spent with doctors and being given too many medicines. Yet there are many people who would say there are few rural doctors, making phsyical access difficult for the rural poor; that on-going treatment, such as chemotherapy for cancer, can NOT be procured in E.R.s, the only access many poor patients have; that poor people often have to choose between buying medicine, buying food, and paying utilities. Give *statistics*, don't just assert that poor people have access and insurance and expect us to nod along.
Your assertion that the main problem is too many medicines.
NO ONE is saying people don't take 3 or more medicines. I myself am on 5 perscriptions. But my own experience is I am doing well on this combination of medicines.
If you want to convince us that too many medicines is the problem with American medical outcomes, you need to *cite* evidence that Canada, Sweden, the UK or some other country with better outcomes does NOT prescribe 3 or more medicines to the same patient. Although that's iffy, even, because in most of those places, you can buy a hell of a lot more over the counter.
The part of your claims that you say is obvious is indeed obvious. So you should have thought about what assertions you were making WERE being questioned and seen where citations were needed yourself.
Posted by: InfraredEyes
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November 16, 2010 9:05 PM
So, frog, your position appears to be that if anyone is unwise enough to have more than one thing wrong with them, they should just die. Because the alternative would be to take multiple medications, and that might kill them.
Now, to be clear, I understand very well that drug interactions can be a serious problem, and I don't doubt for a moment that doctors make mistakes. But in the midst of all your frothing and foaming, I don't hear you suggesting an alternative course of action. Unless you are serious about recommending chiropractic, which would certainly be "alternative". It wouldn't work of course, but that doesn't seem to be your primary concern here.
Posted by: Gregory Greenwood
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November 16, 2010 9:07 PM
JoshK @ 92;
Thanks.
I most certainly do follow you. As the Bard might say "Aye, there's the rub". As you say, you have to be careful not to simply wind up taking the words of a slightly more enlightened talking head as unvarnished truth, which (while undeniiably the easier path) is not much of an improvement. Thinking for oneself is one of life's most vital skills, and it cannot really be taught to you entirely by another. As I found for myself, you have to take most of the steps on your own. Just don't go around expecting to be popular. Some people simply cannot abide anyone who doesn't obediently jump on the bandwagon...
...especially if that bandwagon has 'god-mobile' painted on the side.
This is the best way to be. A person must never be afraid to re-examine their beliefs in the light of new evidence. Dogma, of whatever stripe, is the enemy of reason.
Having said this, do not be afraid to call people on blatent irrationality. The world is full of people who don't care about the evidence if it does not conform with their preconceptions, and they are very good at trying to redefine terms to obfusticate the issue.
Posted by: AlisonS
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November 16, 2010 9:40 PM
When Crazy Mike gets sick, I hope he calls on the witch doctor. Someone who has such hatred for modern science should not ever have to submit himself to live-saving medicine or medical procedures. After all, he couldn't, in good conscience, put his money into the hands of those evil scientists and doctors.
Posted by: Matrim
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November 16, 2010 10:51 PM
#10 "Whats 20% of an unknown number?"
x/5 *nods sagely*
@ #25> Average life expectancy has gone up by several years since the 80's. Granted, this is an average, so it doesn't take economics into account. However, the question isn't "does anyone think our healthcare system works?" It's "does anyone thing modern medicine still works?" The answer is a resounding "yes." Death by both heart disease and stroke are down, though death by cancer, influenza, and diabetes are fairly level. You're totally right that economics are a big part of health, and that the poor in our country are at a much greater risk of death by treatable illness. However, that doesn't speak as to the efficacy of the treatment, just the availability and application. Also, the lower 50% aren't below the poverty line, that's floating around 14-17% (although about 60% of people in America will live below the poverty line at some point in their life).
The stats I got were from the Dept of Health and Human Resources, if you have different data, please share it.
Posted by: mistermuz
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November 16, 2010 10:56 PM
I always wonder about folks like Adams. And some anti-vaxx followers. They speak with the impassioned righteousness of the zealot and they seem very sincere about it, usually. They have seen the evil in the world and it is modern medicine.
I always wonder what on earth must have happened to them to form this attitude. I've heard it plenty of times from people over the years: "You can't trust doctors. They just try and push as many pills on you as possible! They get paid to do it by pharmacutical companies!"
I live in one of the more hippy-ish alt-med urban enclaves in Australia and I heard all this long people such people knew or cared about the internet.
I also grew up in a religion that shuns medicine. When I finally broke from that and went to the docs for something I would have been perfectly happy for them the ply me with drugs of all kinds whether I needed them or not. But I've been to about six different MDs over the years in various parts of town, for a variety of mild but potentially serious things. All of which had some potential drug intervention they could have reccommended. Not one of them has prescribed any such thing for me. I even brought it up a couple of times, worried their little practical treatments would do the job. Every time they would shrug it off and say we'll wait and see instead. Even when I was a clearly miserable sod who could probably have used some perking up. (and they've been right in all cases btw)
It's just personal experience, I know, but I have to wonder if a lot of these alterna types have even been to a doc and if it was so awful why they didn't try another one.
My sister, on the other hand, has a penchant for all things 'natural' and that has lead her down a predictable path into that world. But, as she discovered and would point out to anyone, it is by far the naturopaths and chiropractors of this world who prescribe continuous treatment/maintenence of every little thing. Things that require constant (expensive) visits and supplies of (expensive) pills of all kinds on a regular basis.
In my humble experience the situation is exactly the opposite of what alternative medicine would have you believe.
How did so many people get the wrong impression, I wonder? Some are just credulous, perhaps. Some a bit contrarian. Some might be familiar with unpleasant experiences they or their parents had in the 50s perhaps (or maybe some recent mishap)? It's strange.
Posted by: jay.sweet
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November 16, 2010 11:41 PM
Yes. Carry on.
Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/c8vgv20epfOnyZYgaPKrcYfDk4TekTh7#ed6d2
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November 16, 2010 11:55 PM
@frog, your seeing elderly people picking up medicines at a pharmacy is hardly good evidence that this is typical. First, patients with multiple or serious conditions that require higher maintanence go to the pharmacy far more often than healthier patients. Seniors are more likely to have serious health trouble. They are also, due to US attitudes about drugs, far more likely to be allowed access to more strictly controlled medicines that must be signed for with ID (such as narcotic pain killers). Sick people go to the pharmacy more often. I have several conditions that require daily medication for my survival (I love how you don’t consider that if someone has five conditions that would otherwise kill them, given that death is the other option, even in cases where drug interaction risk is high, the benefits outweigh the costs). This means that I get at minimum two and more often four or five medications filled every month like clockwork. However, my healthy classmates get one at most on such a regular basis (hormonal birth control). So, obviously, the sickest people are going to be taking the most drugs and going to the pharmacy the most.
Also, drug studies do take into account drug interactions. Ever actually read the long lists given with drugs, particularly those that are higher risk? The thing about drug approval trials is that the final stages are human trials. If said drug interacts poorly with common medications like those for blood pressure or antibiotics, that gets noted pretty quickly. There is less known about interactions of less common drugs with other less common drugs, but people taking two unusual drugs usually have specific health needs that mean that the benefits outweigh the costs of leaving either untreated.
Posted by: Cath the Canberra Cook
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November 17, 2010 12:15 AM
We've gone off topic, but it's interesting enough.
Related to frog's EEEVILL medicine rant, is that I think that actual treatments can also be different in the US than other countries. Given a sue-happy legal environment, there seems to be a pressure to over-test and over-prescribe, to cover every base to avoid malpractice. While there's probably a counter pressure from the insurers, I should imagine, to do less. Too much for the rich, too little for the poor, probably.
At any rate, it seems to me that US medical practice is driven more strongly by economic and social factors than other countries. Where we might prefer to base something like frequency of breast cancer screening on scientific and evidence based factors, you might get less than optimal intervals because of other non-scientific factors being weighed too heavily.
Posted by: RobertL
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November 17, 2010 12:34 AM
Several years ago, people got annoyed with the prevalence of references to Hitler on online discussions, and so arose "Godwin's Law".
I propose "Shelley's Law" in relation to GM.
Similar to Godwin's: as a discussion gets longer, the probability of comparison involving Frankenstein nears 1.0.
Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist
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November 17, 2010 12:39 AM
especially annoying as Shelly's book had nothing against the evil of science per say. In fact if you read the book the monster is the way he is not by the virtue of his genesis, but because Victor is a horrible fuck up and a failure as a father.
Posted by: RobertL
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November 17, 2010 1:17 AM
Ing - good point.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM
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November 17, 2010 1:31 AM
RobertL #102
Perhaps I inhabit a different internet than you but I rarely see mention of Frankenstein in discussions. Is it a big deal in other parts of the net?
Posted by: Tom
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November 17, 2010 2:28 AM
Re Shelly - the science was fine - it was the engineering (the science:world control interface) that went badly wrong.
I personally think the science of GM will provide some useful extra food in the future but currently the engineering is at the same level that fusion was in 1950. And if the likes of Monsanto are allowed to get away with what they are doing - running long before they can safely crawl - they will be the ones who stop the tokomak ever being powered up - and we'd be writing this using pedal powered pc's if the fusion industry had convinced governments to put all their energy eggs in one basket as the GM industry seems to have succeeded in the production of cattle feed.
Posted by: Midnight Rambler
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November 17, 2010 2:32 AM
'Tis - GMOs are very often called Frankenfoods, even by scientists.
Posted by: mikee
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November 17, 2010 2:52 AM
I agree with these natural news people - it's terrible how the pharmaceutical industry pushes all these "chemicals" on people. It's much better when the natural community gets everyone to take lots of vitamin supplements because they aren't chem....
oh, hang on a minute!
Bugger :-)
Seriously, one of the things that annoys me most about this article is it's evil caricature of science bloggers and scientists, many of whom spend their time and effort trying to inform people and to make the world a better place, then have this crap thrown in their faces by a bunch of nuts living in a fantasy world.
It's like wading in the shallow end of the gene pool and not a bottle of chlorine in sight.
Posted by: tuibguy
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November 17, 2010 7:40 AM
GMO's are used for more than foods. There are researchers who are studying the ability of GM trees to planted in hazardous waste sites in order remove toxic chemicals from the soil. There are researchers studying bt cotton that is weevil resistant so that the growers don't have to spray so many chemicals on crops; chemicals which enter the groundwater.
There are organizations developing open-source GMO's to wrest control of GM development from the hands of the big corporations. The resistance to GMO at BT resembles the resistance to vaccines in so many ways, but here is a source of information from researchers who examine the issues of GM without the hysteria of the popular press.
Biofortified
Posted by: Gregory Greenwood
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November 17, 2010 8:25 AM
I find it particularly amusing (and yet also at times irritating) that many of the people who yell the loudest about the 'evils' of modern medicine are often dependent upon it for their own survival.
Isn't it odd how homeopathy/crystal therapy/acupuncture/laying on hands only ever seem to acheive the healing 'miracles' attributed to them while the patient is also receiving comprehensive modern medical treatment?
Why, its almost as if scientifically proven treatment is the thing that is curing them, and all the woo is just sympathetic magic window dressing... and yet the adherants of 'alternative' medicine never seem to remember to mention the involvement of scientific medical techniques, with all the associated 'evil' chemicals, that they so love to denigrate.
Then again, I suppose I would say that. As so many alt. med. believers like to say, anyone who openly states that they prefer scientifically proven medicine to random combinations of often toxic herbs or magic rocks (rather than just reaping the benefits of medical science while pretending that snake oil cured their *insert disease/medical condition*) must be part of 'teh ebil Big Pharma conspiracy'...
Posted by: Don
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November 17, 2010 9:12 AM
PZ, may I respectfully point out a couple of things?
a) You're correct to point out that online polls are a terrible substitute for resolving a question. Self-selected samples, for starters, are worthless. Yet you rarely mention their worthlessness, except for this occasion when your side lost.
b) Crazy Mike is a straw man. Lots of people commented here with rational objections to GMOs, based on a scientific understanding of ecology, and past history. I get that you disagree with us, but please don't present inarticulate loonies as representative of the anti-GMO side. It's cheap.
Posted by: Fortinbras Armstrong
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November 17, 2010 9:26 AM
Some people seem to believe that scientific truth should be decided by popular vote among non-scientists. I have seen this idea actually advanced (though not so baldly) by creationists.
Posted by: Lori
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November 17, 2010 9:37 AM
lmao, I'm a cult worshipper!
Posted by: hyperdeath
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November 17, 2010 10:51 AM
Posted by: Don
P.Z. doesn't take online polls seriously, whatever the outcome. The poll crashing thing is a running joke, intended to highlight the absurdity of using (self-selecting) opinion polling to determine truth.
Posted by: Peter Ashby
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November 17, 2010 12:10 PM
As a biologist who has made his share of GMO's (furry, whiskered ones, safely locked in the animal house) I too have always been opposed to the patenting of genes for the simple reason that they are bleedingly obviously discoveries. There is no invention involved.
Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawlw4oH0l6k2YD0NCQUeu7nC2owgujUl77U
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November 17, 2010 1:22 PM
When I went to my doctor for a checkup last time, he said my serum cholesterol was getting a little high. He said he could prescribe statins, but he would prefer a change in diet and a daily niacin supplement, which is what I went for. He didn't make a bunch of money off of that, unless he owns stock in produce.
This past weekend I went to the ER - I had symptoms that were consistent with retinal detachment. Using modern medical apparatus, they determined that it was instead the mostly harmless normal aging of the eye (PVD). If it *had been retinal detachment, they could have spot welded it (before it got worse) with their modern medical devices. The only drugs I received were one time and topical, on the eye for dilation.
I do have a crooked finger which I had dislocated some years back. It wasn't treated properly because I was between jobs, and therefore uninsured. (I've worked 28 of the last 29 years.) The US medical system sucks, but modern medicine rocks.
Kermit