In deciding to sue Brian Deer, Fiona Godlee, and the BMJ for Brian Deer's BMJ article about his scientific fraud a year ago, Andrew Wakefield was clearly grabbing for publicity, seeking to fire up his supporters (which he's largely succeeded in doing), and trying to make himself relevent again after the allegations published in the BMJ a year ago led to his further decline. Regarding making himself relevant again, I might caution Andy to be careful: He might just get what he wished for, just not in the way he wished it. After all, right before his lawsuit became public, Wakefield had already been listed by Medscape as the worst doctor of 2011 for his research fraud. What could come next?
How about being listed among the Great Science Frauds of all time by TIME Magazine, along with Woo Suk Huang and Charles Dawson (the latter of whom is particularly amusing, givne how Brian Deer referred to Andrew Wakefield's work as "Piltdown medicine" in his expose for the BMJ)? Check it out:
Do vaccines cause autism? Medical experts say no, but we can thank Wakefield for introducing the doubt that won't die in many parents' minds. In 1998, the gastroenterologist at Royal Free Hospital in London published a study describing a connection between the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism, after he found evidence of these viruses, presumably from the shot, in the guts of a dozen autistic children, eight of whom developed autism-like symptoms days after receiving their vaccination.Other scientists could not replicate Wakefield's findings, nor verify a link between the vaccine and autism. In 2010, the journal that published his paper retracted it, and its editors noted that "it was utterly clear, without any ambiguity at all, that the statements in the paper were utterly false." Later that year, the General Medical Council in the U.K. revoked Wakefield's medical license, citing ethical concerns over how he recruited the patients in the study as well as his failure to disclose that he was a paid consultant to attorneys representing parents who believed their children had been harmed by vaccines.
The final shoe dropped a year later, when another prestigious medical journal concluded that his research was also fraudulent, after evidence that some of the timelines of the children's symptoms were misrepresented.
Great going, Andy! Keep it up, and maybe you can be on more lists like this in 2012!
In the meantime, we are reminded of the power of vaccination by this story, which points out that it's been a year since the last case of polio was recorded in India. Although it has been delayed by antivaccine sentiments based on religion and paranoid conspiracy theories, the eradication of polio is now--finally!--potentially achievable. Just as smallpox was eradicated. Compare and contrast: Thousands of cases of measles in the U.K. and Europe, largely thanks to the fear of the MMR stoked largely by Wakefield's fraudulent research. No matter how much Wakefield's antivaccine fans try to spin it otherwise, that is how Wakefield will be remembered by history, and, in my opinion, rightly so.
- Log in to post comments
Flip, you really need anger management help, & to spend less time on your flogging your blogging & more time living hygienically... (Hint- take it!).
It doesn't seem to be having much of a salutary anger-management effect on you, kiddo. (Sheeple? And could you figure out what "blogging" means?)
Emily@497: D Pavlevski? You mean this guy (note spelling of name) at drpavlevsky.com? The man who says that children need to be allowed to experience symptoms of acute illness in order for their bodies to appropriately cleanse the wastes and toxins from their systems, and so they can go forward in their lives toward greater optimal health and wellness.â Rarely does Dr. Palevsky ever need to prescribe antibiotics for children in his practice. On average, he writes one antibiotic prescription per year. This is because he has come to understand that most illnesses in children are not caused by infections, and therefore, donât require antibiotic treatment He is also anti-vaccination & into "holistic" medicine.
So, he would rather have kids (& their parents) suffer through all that's involved in an acute pertussis/diphtheria/Hib/et al infection, with all the attendant risks thereof? He also seems to be skirting round the edges of germ theory denialism, although to be charitable there's no call for antibiotic use for viral infection - but then, all doctors should know that anyway. I wouldn't nail my colors to this particular mast if I were you, Emily!
@ Alison: The doctor that "Emily" refers to is one of the "stars" of the anti-vax movie "The Greater Good", reviewed here by our expert movie critic Orac on November 11, 2011:
"Anti-vaccine propaganda lands in New York City this weekend"
"Is it any surprise that Dr. Palevsky comes across in the movie very much as being "anti-vaccine"? Of course not. He even writes articles for the NVIC. It's also no surprise that Dr. Palevsky spends much of his time on The Greater Good promoting a litany of anti-vaccine pseudoscience, including the "toxins" gambit, conspiracy mongering about pharmaceutical companies, and claims that vaccines aren't adequately tested. Late in the movie, he's even shown speaking to the American College for Advancement in Medicine (ACAM) and using the most brain dead of anti-vaccine gambits, namely claiming that because mortality from various infectious diseases was falling before vaccines for those diseases were introduced it must mean that vaccines are useless."
I checked out his website and he is not practice pediatrics in Northport New York right now. He says he has a nurse practitioner who is seeing patients in his stead...and that he is around somewhere covering decisions made by the nurse practitioner.
BTW, there have been a number of outbreaks of pertussis in Suffolk County New York recently, centered on the Northport School District. Northport is the location of this quack's medical practice.
@497 Emily
Unoriginal. I've heard that one before and every time it just makes me wonder. I'm pretty forthcoming when I write, but in real life I'm extremely shy. And I'd take your hint, except I still have no idea how living hygienically is any different than what I'm doing now. And you stated that you don't know what caused my illness, so how could you treat it? But you go on posturing, if it makes you feel better.
Well because that helps me understand how Natural Hygiene works. No wait, it doesn't. It has the usual explanation about "what" it is, but it doesn't actually explain how all those 'natural' principles act on the body or the biological processes that occur. Maybe I just missed it: would you mind pointing me to the page that explains that process/es? By the way, I don't see any info on how they treat schizophrenia, or many of the other mental illnesses out there.
So you rail against us for wanting papers, etc. but then post links to websites that both mention and discuss papers, but also videos? Regina Emily does it again!! Which is it: are papers useless propaganda, or are they useful unbiased data?
But anyway, do you remember when you said that meds/surgery can be used sometimes or that Natural Hygiene doesn't claim to solve everything? Yeah, and then your screed goes on and shows just how much of a Queen of Contradictions you really are.
I note that your site says this about Mental Fitness:
One wonders how stress relieving activities actually cure or treat depression or any other mental illness. "Positive thinking" strikes again. Apparently walking cures dementia. Shit, if only my grandfather knew that... he walked every day! He was just doing it wrong I guess. My favourite is "activity and IQ may combat dementia". The implication is that one just has to be "smarter", but that's not at all what the paper is saying. It's also a single small study from the 40s. The paper on dementia is actually about cognitive function.
I quote from the actual article: "Finally, we did not assess development of dementia in our cohort."
http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/292/12/1454.full
Orac is right: these people take proper studies that discuss and recommend 'natural' approaches and then lean on them to promote their own thing. -- And do I detect SBM actually looking into 'natural' approaches? How does that fit with your biased idea that SBM doesn't? Oh right, you're going to ignore that point. Again.
Can you start to understand why I sound so angry? These people - and you - are trying to tell me that I'm just "living wrong" and that SBM isn't going to look at my lifestyle, even though it does. How can a 10 year old "live wrong"? Especially when she's doing everything that Natural Hygiene appears to promote? Victim-blaming isn't something I put up with well. Nor should I have to. This is extremely pervasive and destructive thinking whereby every mentally ill person is just not trying hard enough or slacking off or "not eating right", and we end up contorting ourselves into avoiding dealing with the actual problem by blaming it on some mystical invisible "energy" or some weird dietary requirement which has no experimental data to back it up. Worse, there's no experimental data to show it has little to no risk, which means that people *can* and *will* get hurt because of the "what's the harm" fallacy. You're the one going on about diets and exercise, like it somehow cancels out a lifetime of a chemical imbalance in the brain. It does not and will not accept the fact that one does not CHOOSE to be this way, and one does not CHOOSE to stop being this way, and one does not shut off suicidal thoughts with ten minutes of yoga every day.
Plenty of people avoid seeking any kind of help at all because they feel ashamed, or like they should try harder, or that others will say "you're just sad", or that it's just a matter of being "relaxed". The only people I have ever EVER heard this from is CAM proponents like you. Not doctors, YOU. Not mental health advocates, YOU. Not psychologists, YOU.
That you think I should be ok with this shows just how narrow your world is and how little you've actually had to experience with mentally ill people or the work being done to help us. I hope to FSM you don't have any contact with them as a "doctor", you'll only end up making things worse.
If that makes me sound angry, good. My words are nothing compared to the contempt I have in real life for anyone who acts like it's just a matter of cutting out dairy and/or thinking positive. If that worked for anyone at all, mental illness wouldn't exist. But I suppose you think all those past asylums were just full of people who ate red meat or something...
PS. I note that you haven't suggested any treatments for me. So, how come you're not willing to help me anymore? Am I being too "negative" for any of your suggestions to work?
Yet another convincing argument. When all else fails, CAM proponents simply call "sheeple", dust their hands, and declare victory. I guess you're one of us now, you've been posting data (crap data, but data all the same) the whole time.
Yeah, I'm the "sheeple". You know very well that this is bullshit, it's been pointed out many times. You're unwillingness to take on board anything anyone writes is proof-positive you're biased. And stupid: in your world where there is 'one cause' of course different meds seem unnecessary. But out here in the real world, there are many meds for many causes. Not every body is the same, and not every body will react the same way to the same meds. However, that's why experiments are necessary, to produce treatments that work for *most* people. In your world, I guess Natural Hygiene has an answer for every undiscovered illness - why not, Georgian times were just *so* much simpler.
It might be interesting to know that I recently suffered from a chronic illness (outside of my depression). I went through about 6 doctors, who put me on various medications, to no effect. I finally saw a specialist, who you know what: talked about various lifestyle changes, and put me on a medication in the meantime (the illness is potentially life-threatening if not treated with a preventative). I've also participated in a study that was critically evaluating the local mental health system, in order to improve it. And my GP (general practitioner) once chatted with me for half an hour trying to get to the bottom of an illness - only to suggest that maybe I was just having issues at home and to change a lifestyle habit.
Yes, there are some doctors/treatments that are crap; just as there are many more that aren't. BUT THIS PROVES NOTHING ABOUT THE EFFICACY AND WORTH OF YOUR OWN HYPOTHESIS. If "sheeple" means having a more nuanced view of the world, then fuck I'm glad I'm one of them. You apparently live in a black and white world all of your own. I guess Pride & Prejudice only comes in B&W where you are?
And you'll live to 100 and never get sick just by .... no I still have no idea what it is you do or how it works. Apparently everything that Natural Hygiene suggests should cure a family member's diabetes, and yet they've been following those principles for the past 10 years. (Doesn't drink, smoke, does exercise, eats right... oh no, sorry, they mix peanuts with other nuts...) How does it work again?
Or... I can't understand how it works and why. I don't like people who say "it just does" because that's pretty much a non-explanation. You know what you could do: you could explain your Natural Hygiene in a way I can understand it. You could post a simple explanation of how it works. You could direct me to a site which doesn't go on about irrelevant ideas about how SBM is bad and doesn't have some logical inconsistency (and no victim blaming). You could actually, I don't know, try to change my mind with proper use of sensible arguments and better descriptions of what it is and how it works.
As of now, I don't see anything particularly unique about promoting good healthy eating and exercise. It certainly doesn't convince me that if I do so I will somehow stop being sick, nor prevent me from getting sick. All you've convinced me of is that they have some nice ideas wrapped up in an ancient way of thinking and some pretty wacky ideas about fasting/food combinations. I have no reason to move my position from there, not because I'm a "believer" but because I see nothing to get excited about. It's pretty much what every doctor I've ever met has said. Eat right, exercise, reduce your risks of being ill. Big whoop!
I have stated time and again that I'm happy to read your information; and I've asked time and again for clarification. I've gone off and read various bits as time could afford me. You state you're not going to explain the toxemia thing to me and have repeatedly shown disdain for anyone who asks for detail. How can I change my mind when you refuse to discuss anything properly and when none of what I've read is clear?
The last resort of a person who has no facts: name-calling.
@499 Narad
Oh I don't know - I did mention that I'd worked as a journo. And in my non-pseudonymous life I do blog. Let's not tar her for getting one thing right, even if it was by accident ;)
@lilady-
A quote from the LI paper reporting on whooping cough outbreak in LI-
"The majority of the students who have been infected with whooping cough had been immunized, which health officials said may account for their milder illness."
@lilday - d'oh! I knew I should have checked Orac's posts first (*makes note to self*)
@alison: If I bragged that I don't give vaccinations and "practiced" in Northport...or had a nurse practitioner "seeing my patients"...perhaps I would write a rebuttal to the Suffolk County Commissioner of the Department of Health's Advisory about the pertussis outbreak.
Here is part of the crap "False Alarm Over Pertussis" article (December 12, 2011), authored by this quack that appeared on the Progressive Radio Network website:
"Pertussis bacteria live in the air. They get blown around along with the other trillions of bacteria that live in the air. Because pertussis bacteria live in the air, we breathe them in along with the other trillions of bacteria swirling around. They end up inhabiting our noses, airways, and lungs. We can be harboring pertussis bacteria in our airways simply by breathing the air."
This quack is a public health menace.
Oh, ken. Don't tell me you're such a blushing novice that you're falling for the "majority of those who get the disease are immunized" fallacy... seriously?
Okay, let me walk you through this slowly. Let's start with two simple propositions:
1) Right-handed people are the majority of the population, making up about 80% of the population to the left-handed people's 20%.
2) There is no way in which one's handedness, whether left- or right-, influences one's chances of getting a disease.
OK. Now, under the circumstances, if a disease starts spreading... the majority of people who get the disease are going to be right-handed. They make up 80% of the general population; they can be safely expected to make up 80% of the caught-the-disease population as well.
Now to your quote: "The majority of the students who have been infected with whooping cough had been immunized..." What, exactly, did you think we could deduce from that? If you thought we could deduce "immunization doesn't protect against whooping cough," then sorry, no gold star for you, you got fooled. If 90% of the general population is immunized, then the non-immunized 10% could get whooping cough at up to 900% the rate at which the immunized get it and still be numerically in the minority!
You get it, right? ... you're not sure. You're still positive that there's some significance to the factoid you posted, something that supports your anti-vaccine views. *sigh* Okay, let's try this example and see if you can understand. Suppose there's a school where 900 students are immunized and 100 are not. A whooping cough carrier introduces the disease to the school and by the time it's gone through, 30 of the immunized students and 20 of the non-immunized students contracted the disease.
Are the majority of those who contracted the disease immunized? Yes. But let's look at what the numbers mean in context of the population makeup:
30 cases out of 900 immunized people = 3.3% of the immunized population caught the disease.
20 cases out of 100 unimmunized people = 20% of the unimmunized population caught the disease.
I'd say 20% is a much larger risk than 3.3%, wouldn't you?
Seriously, ken, not your finest moment. You made yourself look awfully naive, and that's only if we give you the benefit of the doubt that you got fooled by it yourself and weren't deliberately trying to juggle statistics to produce an impression you knew to be false.
or had a nurse practitioner "seeing my patients"
Yes, how does that work, anyway? Do the patients pay less for seeing the nurse rather than the doctor? Do they feel somehow short-changed because they're not seeing the doctor? Does the nurse-practitioner subscribe to the same loopy philosophies as he does? (Here I'm guessing the answer is probably 'yes' as otherwise they wouldn't have been employed, but in that case, have they carefully forgotten much of what they should have learned in their training? The same, probably rhetorical, question, applies to the doctor himself...)
re 498
"So, Emily, any answer to why there was a 90% decline in measles rates in the USA between 1960 and 1970? Or are you just going to keep up with your delusions of relevancy?"
I am much more interested in the decline of infectious diseases since 1890, well before widespread vaccinations or anti biotics became available.I'm not interested in a 10 year period where a drop occurred, in the context of a much longer & consistent drop prior.
You also haven't told me why my 3 children, have never had the flu ( in over 50 years in total) despite never being fluvaxed & despite residing next door to a virus colony.
This also applies to many of our friends who chose similar paths. Why do the mutating "evil" critters spare us? Are they capable of showing sympathy? We aren't "protected" by the vaccine. Would you still advise that my children take your flu vaccine?
re Flip:
NH is a completely different belief system.It doesn't promote "cures" or treatments for disease because of reasons i've explained before: disease is natural when causes are introduced, the symptoms are the resistance, reparatory in nature & ALL having survival value.There is no such thing as "natural" health because any health one has, be it fragile or vigorous, is courtesy of mother nature! etc etc.
When you ask how does it "treat" this or that, which is how people have been conditioned to think in terms of their illnesses, you need to be addressing this to either a medical doctor or an "alternative" therapist, the former relying mostly on drugs & chemical/surgical interventions etc,the latter recommending anything from planet Mars Krill oil to quackapuncture.
From a NH perspective, & perspective is critical in all life pursuits, there are basically 2 types of totally legitimate health modalities: NH & emergency & crisis surgery, all the rest is stamp collecting!
Flip, investigate the subtleties of NH yourself over time.
It will be an investment well spent.
I sincerely wish you well, & I wish we could meet someday & chat in detail, you sound like a good "aussie".
Re alison @ 500:
" Emily@497: D Pavlevski? You mean this guy (note spelling of name) at drpavlevsky.com? The man who says that children need to be allowed to experience symptoms of acute illness in order for their bodies to appropriately cleanse the wastes and toxins from their systems, and so they can go forward in their lives toward greater optimal health and wellness.â Rarely does Dr. Palevsky ever need to prescribe antibiotics for children in his practice. On average, he writes one antibiotic prescription per year. This is because he has come to understand that most illnesses in children are not caused by infections, and therefore, donât require antibiotic treatment He is also anti-vaccination & into "holistic" medicine.
So, he would rather have kids (& their parents) suffer through all that's involved in an acute pertussis/diphtheria/Hib/et al infection, with all the attendant risks thereof? He also seems to be skirting round the edges of germ theory denialism, although to be charitable there's no call for antibiotic use for viral infection - but then, all doctors should know that anyway. I wouldn't nail my colors to this particular mast if I were you, Emily!"
Dr Palevski is a breath of fresh air in the fetid vestibule of the Holy Church of Modern Medicine.
I have stated before: disease is reparatory in nature, it is defensive, it is remedial, it has survival value: coughing, sneezing, fever, vomiting, diarrhoea, skin eruptions - these are not antagonistic to health, they are an expression of a healthy organism trying valiantly to remedy & normalize itself.
In other words, the disease & its symptoms ARE the resistance! You inhale dust, you cough. The coughing represents the resistance to the "causes" Do you need to "treat" the cough? NO!
If a child (or anyone) becomes febrile, the fever IS the resistance. It is reparatory in nature, doubling the rate of travel of leucocytes for every degree of rise in temperature.
The canard by SBM Type2 advocates (seriously bad medicine) that convulsions are the reason to stop the fever, just don't get it, because the fever is not related to the height of the fever, but to the rate of ascent. And convulsions aren't dangerous.
How many babies & children over the decades have died because of SBM Type 2's penchant for stopping their fevers in their tracks.
Their little bodies are screaming for desistance & what do they get? Interference & anti-pyrretic insanity. And still it goes on.
SBM needs to understand this biological truism & try to work with nature, not against her.
There should be more Drs Palevskis, Fuhrmans, Campbells, Goldhammers etc- health practitioners who do not belittle natural processes, but understand them.
@Emily:
While this is true of some symptoms, it's by no means true of all. The symptoms of mineral and vitamin deficiency aren't resistive/reparatory/remedial. Nor are the symptoms of poisoning (save for vomiting). Nor are the symptoms caused by bacterial exotoxins and endotoxins (which, to give some examples, includes pertussis, tetanus, cholera, salmonella and some strains of E. coli). Nor are the symptoms of type I diabetes, hemophilia, or sickle cell anemia. And I'm pretty sure the symptoms of rabies aren't helpful, since rabies has an almost 100% fatality rate.
So, then, all (or at least most) deaths due to childhood diseases are iatrogenic? I'm curious: what percentage of the deaths due to smallpox were iatrogenic? When the bubonic plague wiped out 30% (or more) of Europe, what percentage of the deaths were iatrogenic?
I'm also curious: how high would a fever have to get before you'd recommend attempting to fight it? 107 °F? 108 °F?
That's nice. But wouldn't it be better to protect the healthy organism from the problem in the first place? You use the example of coughing in response to dust; some of us would put on a mask or go inside to get away from that dust. The point of a vaccination campaign is to keep disease away from the vulnerable who *can't* "remedy and normalize" -- like the ten babies who coughed themselves to death from pertussis last year in California.
Speaking of vaccination, Emily, you said you had three children totaling 53 years of age, and they've had the measles. That means they average about eighteen years old. Show of hands please: how many of Orac's readers are around the age of eighteen -- say, up to age twenty-five -- and have had the measles? How many have children up to age twenty-five that have had the measles?
You see, Emily, most young people of your children's age have never had the measles. They've never had to valiantly "remedy and normalize" themselves against the measles, because they've never had them. It's part of civilization: our distant ancestors had to valiantly defend themselves against wild animals, but today we don't. They had to valiantly "remedy and normalize" in response to all sorts of parasites, but today we in the West mostly don't. And so on.
Back in the Nineteenth Century, when your beliefs were formulated, a fatalistic acceptance that disease is normal and nothing can or should be done about it, except fresh air, sunshine, good food, and clean water, was a perfectly reasonable attitude and undoubtedly saved lives as against the medical science of the day.
But you're talking to people who live in the Twenty-First Century, and your beliefs are silly when they're not actively dangerous.
Emily, you do realize that diarrhea is the second most common cause of infant deaths worldwide? Calling that "not antagonistic to health" makes you sound like a monster, frankly. Moreover, if your simplistic idea that "diarrhea and other disease symptoms are always good and bringing them under control is always bad" were true, the death tolls from diseases such as cholera that primarily kill through diarrhea and vomiting should be lower in the developing world where less medical care is available and higher in highly developed nations where medical care is more readily available. When we look at the actual evidence (which you should really try doing sometime) we see that the truth is exactly the opposite of what your natural hygiene beliefs predict.
Will you ever start learning from your mistakes, Emily? Or would that be a bad thing because Dr. Shelton never said anything about learning from your mistakes and Dr. Shelton couldn't possibly be wrong?
"Emily, you do realize that diarrhea is the second most common cause of infant deaths worldwide?"
No, she probably doesn't. And won't learn, either.
You also haven't told me why my 3 children, have never had the flu ( in over 50 years in total) despite never being fluvaxed & despite residing next door to a virus colony.
Emily, going 20 years without getting the flu is hardly uncommon. Adding a stupid flourish about living next to a "virus colony" doesn't make it any more noteworthy, nor does it constitute a compelling argument against vaccination.
You miss Chris's point entirely. Measles incidence didn't drop before vaccination. Before vaccination was introduced 98% of people got measles in childhood, and the remaining 2% were unfortunate because they were likely to get it as an adult, when death and other unfortunate sequelae are more likely. Why did your children get measles? Did you neglect their health to such an extent their bodies had to produce a rash and a fever to recover? Why has there been a resurgence of measles in Europe? Have the French suddenly adopted a bad diet? Is the fall in vaccination uptake just a coincidence? Natural hygiene precepts fail to make any sense of what we observe of measles, as just one example.
And convulsions aren't dangerous.
Holy cats. No, pediatric febrile seizures don't usually produce lasting damage. You know what helps in this regard? Not having meninfuckingitis. Breezily dismissing a complex seizure in the presence of fever isn't a bright idea.
Emily, in her morning delusional dose presents us with:
I don't care what interests you, I want you to answer the question as I asked it. Go back to where I asked up at comment #48 (Posted by: Chris | January 14, 2012 6:08 PM), where I said (with added formatting): Do not change the subject to mortality (deaths), any other country nor any other decade.
In case you do not understand, 1890 is another decade! Stop avoiding the question, and answer it. Measles cycled between 200 to about 500 cases per 100000 over most of the twentieth century. Then it plummeted to under 25 cases per 100000 in one decade, and has never been greater than 12 per 100000 since (and 1990 was an epidemic year).
If you are going to grace us with your brain droppings each morning, you can answer the question. Stop making excuses.
So Emily lives next door to a "virus factory", eh? *And, what would her neighbors say about the wacko next door and her three rugs rats who have had measles and whose mother starves them at the first sign of illness.
I had measles when I was 14 years old, along with my 15 year old and 20 year old siblings...rather unusual, because all of our peers in the neighborhood had the disease earlier in childhood. We survived measles unscathed but my cousin who had measles encephalopathy was left with lifelong neurological sequelae. Some of our peers had polio and a close childhood chum died from polio.
My children born 1970 and 1976 and their peers never had measles due to the vaccine that was licensed and was given to them, but they each had chicken pox, before the vaccine became available. My son, who was severely handicapped, had the benefit of acyclovir which shortened the course and lessened the severity of the disease.
What idiot makes a broad statement about seizures, except our resident bullshitter Emily? If she ever had a child with a seizure condition who went into status epilepticus and had Todd's paralysis due to seizures, would she still make those silly statements?
No Emily, you have failed to convince us that you have any education, any higher education degree, any "teaching credentials" and any employment in any health care field.
* If Emily lived next door to me and I was aware of her neglectful and abusive treatment of her children, I would have reported her to child protective services.
lilady:
I just skimmed her post after her excuse to not answer my question. To tell us that seizures are not dangerous is incredibly stupid. While febrile seizures are generally not dangerous, they do need to checked.
My son has some permanent neurological damage, and yet the neurologist will only say the seizures may or may not be related (I'm pretty sure the last one during an illness, but with no fever, are related). In his special ed. preschool there were other kids with seizure issues, including one where he would stop breathing when he had a seizure (and whose younger brother had Landau-Kleffner Syndrome that required surgery).
@508 Emily
I've never had the flu, and I've only had a flu vax once in my life. My father has had flu on occasion when I was living with him but I never caught it. Funnily enough, life is more complicated than you are willing to admit. I may have a natural immunity, I may have been covered by herd immunity, or I may just be lucky. So many variables, so little time to explain it all. Your B&W worldview must save you a lot of thinking.
So you've just redefined the word "treat", and simultaneously contradicted every Natural Hygiene resource you've promoted. Can you please define your use of "disease", "cause" and "treatment"?
I still have no idea what these causes are in your worldview. Stating "disease is natural when causes are introduced" is about as informative as saying "popcorn is corn popped". It's circular argumentative reasoning and it's not useful information.
So what would you use instead? The principles of Natural Hygiene exist in order to do what? If they don't "treat" are the principles designed to prevent illnesses? Or is it that Natural Hygiene is just an idea that is useless on any practical level? See you can go on about how my wording is incorrect due to "conditioning", but that's bullshit. We're all using the English language here and unless you have some weird-ass dictionary with a different definition, my word = your word. If you have some sort of different meaning then be damn sure to give a definition of how you're using it. Unless you are an absolute idiot, one can't possibly state that the English language is a tool of Big Pharma. So do yourself a favour and use the words you intend in the manner in which we can understand them.
But no, you'll just proclaim that yet again I'm stupid and you're the one being misunderstood. Here's a clue: words have meaning. You need some serious education on linguistics.
So why is Natural Health useful if it does not "treat"? And that "perspective" of yours - yet another victim-blaming hand-waving canard. You may as well have written "other ways of knowing" or "negative thinking affects the outcome". It would have been just as unoriginal.
I'd love to. Except the several hours I've wasted on it already have left me completely confused. I find nothing enlightening because it's all written in a manner so vague as to be useless.
Oh I see. I'm no longer some angry pawn of Big Pharma now am I? Say, I notice you still haven't given me info about how you would "treat" me. You offered before remember? If Natural Hygiene does not cure or treat, then what in the world where you offering as a service before? Life guidance? Positive thinking? A course on meditation? What?
@509 Emily
Pray tell what is the reparatory nature of mental illness? Is schizophrenia - as one example - supposed to heal something? And what happens when the disease "repairs" to the point of the person dying? See your worldview only accounts for that pretty hazy Pride & Prejudice notion that illness is only ever minor and due to being poor. I suppose it would be in your world: where surgery/meds are a last resort (aka still used) and your financial status means you don't see any death or life-changing injuries. Your modality only works if one has a common cold or something similarly mild. The reason why you never see any fatality when "piloting" someone with Natural Hygiene is probably that your "patients" are most undoubtedly rich enough to not have too many health problems.
You're a fucking idiot. Have you not ever experienced asthma? I have - and I've coughed as a symptom, often once every few seconds for hours on end. The only thing that prevented me from passing out from lack of ability to catch my breath - due to constant and deep coughing - was an inhaler. This is after a year or so of living with the problem, without having any medications of any sort. Changing my diet, cleaning the house, checking for allergens, getting more exercise (that was harder actually, because exercise makes it harder to breath not easier)... none of those things made the asthma go away. And neither did waiting around for it, and I had 2 trips to the ER because of lack of oxygen. Until I got the inhaler, which prevented the asthma. Yes, you do have to treat the cough. And while you're at it, you treat the underlying cause which is your lungs being unable to inhale oxygen. Thank FSM for SBM!
There's no way in hell you've studied any kind of science. Just from my own experience I can prove you're speaking bull. Like I said, in your world, the only problems you see are minor ones. Try spending some time next to a kid with pertussis or someone with asthma. You'd have them faint just so you can prove that coughing is "reparatory" and not at all dangerous; meanwhile they'd be desperately clawing for air.
Yet another blatant example of victim blaming. I suppose some good positive thinking, quick "fasting" and harnessing "energy" would have stopped me from keeling over on a bus from the inability to breath.
"Their little bodies are screaming for desistance & what do they get? Interference & anti-pyrretic insanity. And still it goes on."
FSM forbid we try and help people with medications. Someone notify Einstein - time works differently in Regina Emily's land, whereby fasting/positive thinking/eating right/whatever creates an immediate positive benefit. Anyone who's tried dieting would know that's bull. Medications can be provided as a stop-gap *whilst* lifestyle changes and/or underlying causes are found. Interference *is* necessary and you contradict yourself again by saying that meds/surgery can be used but "interference" is bad. You are shockingly terrible at following your own train of thought to a conclusion.
You know your mention of wanting to meet me? Well I don't want to meet you. If I have an asthma attack you'll deprive me of medications and expect me to just "wait it out". I'll faint and you'll not call for help, you'll just sit there and twiddle your thumbs. And you wonder why I sound angry.
There are, you just refuse to admit that SBM doctors can and do recommend 'natural' health practices. You know what an SBM doctor recommended for my asthma? Checking to see if my lifestyle habits were affecting me. That was *before* prescribing medications.
I wonder: do you read history books, or only things that were written by Natural Hygiene promoters? Ie. do you read anything pre- or post- Natural Hygiene was "invented"?
I lastly note your pathetic avoidance of my comments about victim-blaming.
@514 LW
I agree. Emily's not going to budge. Which is a pity, because if she did even a little, she might actually prevent someone from getting hurt. Namely, those people she "pilots". Not "treats" because apparently that word is wrong.
@516 Krebiozen
Natural Hygiene isn't a "treatment", it's a "lifestyle", therefore it doesn't prevent or cure anything anyway. According to Emily's logic.
Emily:
This is a turnaround from her first comment on this thread (#39), the one that inspired Chris' insistence:
So she is interested in the rate of infectious diseases over the "past 100 years", unless the pattern contradicts her claim, in which case she is "not interested" in the evidence, and "past 100 years" means only certain decades.
This is an understandable way to shield one's beliefs from reality but it is not the way to convince people.
@ flip:
"one can't possibly state that the English langiuage is a tool of Big Pharma."
I wouldn't be so entirely sure of that, my love. Think about it.
Flip, I'll say it again - you are awesome. That is one thorough rebuttal. Thanks for taking the time to do it. (Please may I give you a 'virtual' hug? Although I gather you're just across the ditch so we might actually meet one day.)
@ mine... "language"
Someone notify Einstein - time works differently in Regina Emily's land
You will recall that when challenged (in another thread) to explain the 1918-1919 Flu epidemic, Emily provided a list of non-viral factors causing people to develop influenza, which included the treatments they received after developing influenza.
@523 Denice
The important part of the sentence was "Unless you are an absolute idiot". ;)
And I notice I screwed up a blockquote above... Sigh.. The section '"Their little bodies are screaming for desistance & what do they get? Interference & anti-pyrretic insanity. And still it goes on."' should be blockquoted.
@524 Alison
Thanks - and a virtual hug back! I hope NZ is doing better after all those earthquakes/after-shocks. The last one wasn't too long ago was it?
@526 Herr Doktor Bimler
Maybe we should see if we can borrow her time machine. :)
It's all a bit timey-wimey in Emily's world.
Flip, awesome takedown. And yeah, I'm getting very tired of "Emily" not knowing the difference between blogging and commenting on a blog.
Also, Emily is appalling in her declaration that diarrhea is "reparatory", not the cause of thousands of child deaths each year. I bet my grandparents were delighted to know that the diarrhea that killed their eldest son before their eyes was "healing" him. But then, it goes along with starving her 3 - or is it 4? She's claimed both - children, a charge which she has not bothered to answer, along with any actual questions put to her that require more than vague hand-waving before a gullible and adoring audience.
Emily is not the Jedi that she was looking for.
Thanks, Flip. Earthquakes - the last 'big' one for Christchurch was around Christmas, but my family down there (I'm up in Hamilton) tell me it's still little 'twitches' on a regular basis. Not good.
re 507 Matthew Kline:
So only some symptoms are reparatory?
Pray tell, at what stage are symptoms non-reparatory.
They are all reparatory in nature, under all circumstances & all conditions.
I have covered this before, but again: by defining symptoms as defensive & self-regulatory, in no way implies they are always successful.
A person who swallows a little poison, vomits, coughs, sweats & survives.
Another takes a huge dose of poison, vomits, coughs, sweats & dies.
Same symptoms, same processes, same regulatory effort on the part of the body, but entirely different outcomes.
The causes are what kills, not the symptoms.
It does not matter if the person has a cold, TB, pneumonia, cancer, pertussis or they have just swallowed a mouse, the coughing & all other symptoms,are always striving to keep us alive, even if unsuccessfully!!!!
re 511 LW:
"That's nice. But wouldn't it be better to protect the healthy organism from the problem in the first place? You use the example of coughing in response to dust; some of us would put on a mask or go inside to get away from that dust. The point of a vaccination campaign is to keep disease away from the vulnerable who *can't* "remedy and normalize" -- like the ten babies who coughed themselves to death from pertussis last year in California".
You are quite right in trying to minimize the problem by staying out of the dust.That's a no-brainer.
However, you are incorrect when you state "to keep disease away". Where is the disease? Show me the flu & I'll hide from it. Show me measles lurking behind the bush & I'll run from it. Disease has no entitative existence.
The problem is that vaccines don't "protect". In fact the word protection is a medical SBM Type 2. That's the fallacy of the medically trained mind.
The only real protection is health!
re 512 LW:
"Back in the Nineteenth Century, when your beliefs were formulated, a fatalistic acceptance that disease is normal and nothing can or should be done about it, except fresh air, sunshine, good food, and clean water, was a perfectly reasonable attitude and undoubtedly saved lives as against the medical science of the day.
But you're talking to people who live in the Twenty-First Century, and your beliefs are silly when they're not actively dangerous".
Firstly LW, you haven't understood from previous posts that disease is NOT normal, it is natural! Health is both natural & normal.
Why is disease natural? Because certain specific causes are introduced, either recently or distantly into our existence.
These causes are responded to defensively by the organism in the form of symptoms.
If the person who either has the symptoms or is a carer for the sufferer, acts in an enlightened,intelligent & rational, way by manipulating certain biological variables within the patient's control, the chances that the symptoms will be successful greatly improve.
For example,when our 3 kids got measles, they all started feeling poorly, were tired & anorexic. They had become enervated through much overseas travel at the time, & were in fact very run down. Their diets had been compromised, they all had experienced interrupted sleep for days & they were forced to sleep on planes at irregular hours.
It didn't surprise us that they became sick.
The early prodromal signs of their illness were responded to by us by promptly getting home asap & resting them. They then developed the typical rash, slept for 2 days, abstained of their own volition from all food for 24-36 hours, depending on the child,then drank diluted juices & a little fruit for a day, & they were all fine.
That's what I mean by intelligent management.
We were not overly concerned, & were not panicked by the fact that it was measles.
We saw their symptoms, understood their bodies were working as designed, & acted in their best interests. We took excellent care of them in this manner, & they learnt some wonderful lessons.
If all doctors were trained in these priceless but powerful principles, there would less tragic sequelae.
Re 513 Antaeus Feldspar
"Emily, you do realize that diarrhea is the second most common cause of infant deaths worldwide? Calling that "not antagonistic to health" makes you sound like a monster, frankly. Moreover, if your simplistic idea that "diarrhea and other disease symptoms are always good and bringing them under control is always bad" were true, the death tolls from diseases such as cholera that primarily kill through diarrhea and vomiting should be lower in the developing world where less medical care is available and higher in highly developed nations where medical care is more readily available. When we look at the actual evidence (which you should really try doing sometime) we see that the truth is exactly the opposite of what your natural hygiene beliefs predict".
Don't fabricate things. Your supposed quote is not mine, so please don't attribute that to me.
Where did I say symptoms are always good? I said they were always defensive, but not always successful.
The tragic case of diarrhoea in babies never invalidates the priciple that their little bodies are still valiantly trying to expel toxins through the bowels.
It is STILL defensive. Just not successful, due to many reasons, one of which would be malnutrition.
Your example at the end is flawed because it rests on the false premise I've just mentioned.
In reality, the real cause of death was not the diarrhoea, but the CAUSES of why the diarrhoea was mounted in this fashion.
The real reason people die after being burned is not because their bodies mounted an over-enthusiastic fluid loss or whatever symptoms were manifested, but because of the FIRE.
@Emily:
As an example, lets take tetanus, which produces tetanus toxin (tetanospasmin), which leads to uncontrollable muscle contractions. So, by this definition, the uncontrollable muscle contractions of tetanus is something other than a symptom? If so, I understand my previous confusion. However, I have to note that you're going to confuse a lot of people, since the vast majority of people are going to be using a different definition of "symptom" than you. I mean, by that definition, many poisons don't cause any symptoms at all.
Getting back to things like fever and diarrhea: lets say that someone has a fever of 109 °F. Is it your claim that the fever, in and of itself, will cause no damage to the person? Or is it that, if the 109 °F fever causes any harm, it has ceased to be a symptom?
Or lets consider cholera and diarrhea. The cholera bacteria releases a toxin which directly causes the intestinal lining to pump lots of water into the intestines, hence the copious diarrhea. Does this make cholera diarrhea not a symptom?
"The problem is that vaccines don't "protect". In fact the word protection is a medical SBM Type 2. That's the fallacy of the medically trained mind.
The only real protection is health!"
So sez, the "hygienist" who has no education at all in the basic sciences, who starves her (3? or 4?) kids when they are ill, who is clueless about water fasts and electrolyte balances, in la-la land when she posts about nutrients and balanced diets, is more than a few cans short of a six-pack and believes in fairy tale science.
What Emily cannot locate on "Google", she makes up and deluges us with her factoids. Just another dumber than dumb, thick as a plank, neuron-challenged troll.
Thanks for playing bullshit bingo with us, Emily.
@Emily:
When a person with tetanus has uncontrollable muscle contractions, are those contractions the body's effort to expel and/or detoxify the tetanus toxin?
Disease has no entitative existence.
Germ theory denial? Check.
The problem is that vaccines don't "protect
Anti-vaccination? Check.
Just not successful, due to many reasons, one of which would be malnutrition. If only they'd eaten better!
It's the victim's fault for Not Doing It Right? Check.
Now, if you'd just answer my previous question regarding evolution, Emily, I suspect I'd have a full house.
re Narad 515:
"Emily, going 20 years without getting the flu is hardly uncommon. Adding a stupid flourish about living next to a "virus colony" doesn't make it any more noteworthy, nor does it constitute a compelling argument against vaccination"
No it might not be uncommon, I agree, but what would be uncommon would be to raise 3 healthy children who have never seen a SBM doctor Type1 or an SBM type 2, nor never had any medication, never had any chiropractic manipulation, nor any vaccinations allpathically or homeopathically, no herbal concoctions, no supplements.
In other words, none of your supposed, imaginary "protection"
And again please don't attribute statements to me that I never made.
I never said IT, by itself, made "a compelling argument against vaccinations".
What is compelling is one's common sense that you don't inject a baby who is not even 24 hours out of the mother's womb, with a cocktail of polysorbate 80, formaldehyde, aluminium, various adjuvants & other chemicals against a disease which is highly unlikely to threaten.
That, Narad, is my definition of insanity.
re 516 Krebiozen:
"You miss Chris's point entirely. Measles incidence didn't drop before vaccination. Before vaccination was introduced 98% of people got measles in childhood, and the remaining 2% were unfortunate because they were likely to get it as an adult, when death and other unfortunate sequelae are more likely. Why did your children get measles? Did you neglect their health to such an extent their bodies had to produce a rash and a fever to recover? Why has there been a resurgence of measles in Europe? Have the French suddenly adopted a bad diet? Is the fall in vaccination uptake just a coincidence? Natural hygiene precepts fail to make any sense of what we observe of measles, as just one example".
a) You're right. I did miss his point- measles incidence did not drop before widespread vaccinations, but mortality did drop, from about 1890.
b) The reaon why they got sick was stated in another post a few minutes ago.
c) Enervation & toxemia are the results of many things, not just a bad diet.
Herbert Shelton had an exemplary diet most of his 90 years, but still developed a neurological disease the last few years of his life. Why? Because he had pushed himself mercilessly most of his adult life, been jailed 4 times,worked his freckles off around the clock & became profoundly enervated.
Food is but one factor!
c) We simply have to agree to disagree on Natural Hygiene.
been jailed 4 times
& what was he jailed for? & Emily - stop galloping long enough to respond to my comment @ 536 above...
re matthew Kline @ 533
"Getting back to things like fever and diarrhea: lets say that someone has a fever of 109 °F. Is it your claim that the fever, in and of itself, will cause no damage to the person? Or is it that, if the 109 °F fever causes any harm, it has ceased to be a symptom?"
Firstly, a fever of that height is, in my experience & IMO, generally caused by interference with the earlier fever & other prodromal symptoms.
That is why I ask the question how many children have tragically perished over the last 100 years & more by well-meaning but poorly informed parents, doctors & nurses, continually trying to drive the fever down.
Another anecdote, not to prove something, but simply to make a point of the dangers of this interference.
A number of years ago we were living in an Asian country. Asians have a paranoid, irrational fear of fevers & call increases in temperature "high fever".
An aquaintance of ours had a 7 year old boy who became sick. No prior history. No red flags. His temp. rose. Off to the doctor. Anti pyretics given. Fever dropped. Next day, spiked. Again, off to doc. More drugs, only stronger.Spiked again.The boy was encouraged to eat "to keep his strength up" despite obvious anorexia. This pattern went on for four & a half days, at which point the boy collapsed & was rushed to hospital, floppy, incoherent & with an uncontrollable temperature. On the 5th day he tragically died, resisting all heroic attempts to keep him alive.
The parents told us he died from "high fever". The fever did not kill him. The drugs & the dangerous & foolhardy interference killed him.
The case still makes me sad, to this day, because that beautiful boy would now be 17 & just about to bloom.
As you say, Emily, this is simply anecdote. But the only reason for you to produce it is because you are still trying to prove something. (Why else say, to make a point?) There would surely have been a post-mortem examination in a case like this, where a child dies suddenly - what was the recorded cause of death? Because, Emily, something like meningitis can cause many of these symptoms (http://www.everybody.co.nz/page-3c9368f4-0ff8-4e94-880e-b4993b9ca20c.as…) - & the only thing likely to be achieved by leaving a child with meningitis alone is that they'll die faster.
So please just stop spinning this BS.
re Lilady @ 519
"* If Emily lived next door to me and I was aware of her neglectful and abusive treatment of her children, I would have reported her to child protective services"
That is why Dr mendelsohn wrote his book Confessions of a Medical Heretic, warning people that the future of medicine was as The Church of Modern Medicine, where the populace were largely controlled by the High Priests, & if you went against their Holy Sacraments (read vaccinations), then you were ostracized & punished.The priests (SBM Type 2)have exclusive rights to the ability to read & think, the implications being obvious when people of your arrogance ask: are you a real doctor?
You make a good Priestess. Anyone who sits on the other side of the medico/big pharma fence is to be punished because of your incredibly dangerous narrow mindedness.
You have displayed your true ignorance by continually & ignorantly referring to "starving" & other frogshit statements, such as "neglectful & abusive treatment", with no evidence whatsoever.
How have I been neglectful & abusive? Because I didn't vaccinate? Because I listened to my children's bodies & respected that? Because I didn't force feed them against their needs? Tell me, & show evidence of your charges. You won't because you have none, & if you could see my family at this very minute,their health, happiness & the love we have for each other & life itself, you would, if you were a half-decent human being, apologize for such hurtful, unfounded remarks.
You represent the same kind of danger that the KKK represented just because someone had a different colour.
You don't believe in evidence-based medicine, yours is eminence-based medicine.
Since it doesn't look like my question at 538 is going to get an answer from Emily, I've done a quick bit of homework. Here's the relevant bit from Shelton's Wikipedia entry:
One does feel rather sorry for those he 'practised' on...
So would Emily and her natural health (again what is unnatural health) be willing to be experimented upon? Really, if they want us all to even consider that they have a point, they should be eager to show us all wrong. I propose the following experiments. Let us inject Emily and other NH proponents with a live virus of their choosing. Let us then follow how well they manage the symptoms and recover. That would be an interesting study. Or if they object to an injection, let's take them to an area of the world with a particularly 'lively' outbreak of something, maybe polio (although that is increasingly rare, hmm wonder why) and have them live and interact with the local population for three months. Let's then record how many got sick or not and how they managed. Are you game, Emily? I am still reeling that you lived in Asia with unvaccinated children (although I realize there are areas of Asia with good vaccination records but certainly others not so much).
Emily does not seem to realize the difference between persecuting someone for their beliefs vs. recognizing them as an actual threat to the life and limb of everyone they encounter.
If even a fraction of what Emily claims is true, she has almost certainly killed people.
Here's a really awful thought: Shelton was jailed but today people who function similarly are often not.
From my own vantage point, I have heard a particular woo-meister "counsel" people about serious illness, bragging about his experience with "70,000" followers, tossing around words like "clinical"/"protocols"/ "lay people"** and facillitating woo-centric groups, employing nutritionists/ counsellors to sell supplements ( live and by phone) and more generally, scaring them about SBM through lectures, films and books.
Then, if you think about their beliefs ( nutrition rules/ anti-pharma) and you see this appellation gracing other woo-providers' CVs and websites, there must be a whole lot of "counselling" going on - and it isn't the kind that I do ( based on standard degrees & training). In addition, there are NDs, struck-off doctors, herbalists, chiropractors, yoga/ exercise teachers and folks who work in health food/ supplement shops "counselling"; people look to sites like AoA to find "treatments" for kids who have ASDs. Mike Adams tells you to fear pharma, then provides a treatment plan he dreamed up. Like an iceberg, much of alt med's influence lies hidden from view.
** in true cargo-cult fashion.
Emily:
You are awfully fond of quoting Dr. Mendelsohn on the evils of modern medicine. Here's a question for you:
Dr. Mendelsohn died at a relatively young age (62, I believe). He expressed an implacable hostility towards modern medicine. What did he rely on for his health care, and why did it fail?
No Emily you are wrong. You don't have a clue about normal human physiology and certainly not pathophysiology. Your continued use of the catchall "dis-ease" is a tip-off. Your misunderstanding of which specific viruses and which specific bacteria actual cause the diseases you speak of, only display your ignorance of all things scientific.
I earned my place in nursing by actually attending a university, passing my nursing boards and remain licensed in good standing as a registered nurse. You, on the other hand, speak vaguely about teaching "health" somewhere, have never been awarded a degree in "hygienics" (whatever that is), discuss your "knowledge" of diets (nutrients manufactured by a starving, fasting body?) and medically neglected your 3? or 4? children.
When pinned down for one of your inane statements, you flit to another subject, the typical behavior of an ignorant, troll.
Stop the bullshit Emily, you're stinking up the blog.
Emily:
Your experience? How do you *know*? You refuse to keep any sort of records that would allow you to test that. Are you so arrogant that you cannot contemplate the idea that you've merely been *lucky* and never had to treat a patient with a really high fever?
It's true -- most fevers that the average person will encounter are self-limiting. They'll resolve no matter what you do or don't do. I contend that this is all you've seen; people who follow your advice and fast get better because they would have gotten better anyway. My contention is what we call the "null hypothesis" -- it's what would happen if you're wrong, and in science, you have to consider that possibility. It is hubris to do otherwise, to think that you are so smart, so perfect, that you cannot be wrong and thus do not need to test for that possibility.
And I don't want to hear any excuses about "well, doctors don't check to see if their drugs are necessary for relieving fever!" That's not important. We're talking about what *you* do, not what they do. Have *you* done the homework to be sure you are treating your patients to the best of your ability? Or are you just assuming that you are?
That makes you sad? It makes me furious. Not because the boy died; that happens, and it's always a tragedy. But that you would pile on that tragedy and blame his parents for taking him to get proper medical care, and say that's what caused his demise. Yes, high fever can kill, directly, though if the fever is from an infection, it's more likely the infection caused the death. Of course, *you* know all the answers.
I wonder: how would you have treated me, when I was four and developed a high temperature? (107. No, antipyretics did not cause that. It happened on its own.) In addition to the high fever, I was vomiting, and had a terrible headache. According to my parents, I was hallucinating as well. This all flared up very quickly, within hours. My parents took me to the emergency room. What would you have done, Emily?
Calli, don't be stupid. Fasting, of course.
Fasting? I thought you were supposed to feed a fever.
Getting back on topic now...Ace Reporter Boy Wonder, Wakefield Stooge Jake Crosby's latest six degrees, sixty degrees or 600 degrees of separation rant is the featured article on today's AoA website:
Alice Park and TIME: Great Media Frauds
Jake is pissed that Alice Park writing for the Time Magazine Healthland blog "Great Science Frauds" (January 12, 2012), featured his hero Andy Wakefield.
Can anyone decipher the interconnections and the degrees of separation vis-a-vis Ms. Park, Time Magazine and the forces of Big Pharma and other evils, that Jake has outlined?
Wouldn't it be better if Jake included a diagram, to prove his degrees of separation?
Is anyone concerned about his fanboi fixation of Wakefield?
This is a non sequitur. In addition, this "an SBM type 2" coinage that you've come up with has got to be clumsiest boneheaded neologism that I've ever heard. You can't even decide what indefinite article it takes or what part of speech it is.
Oh, quit whining about imagined misattributions. It in fact is your argument: Look, no vaccines, didn't get anything! Proof that vaccines are unnecessary!
Last "few" years? He was bedridden for well over a decade.
Anyway, what does "profoundly enervated" mean? Is "nerve energy" replenished by rest, or isn't it? Is there some critical density of "nerve energy"? If so, why wouldn't it just promptly run out entirely below this point?
(In other news, I have learned that neurosis is a necessary precondition of asthma.)
Don't fabricate things. Your supposed quote is not mine, so please don't attribute that to me.
This is from Emily, whose comment #342 attributes a fabricated statement about swine-flu vaccine to a Prof. Peter Collignon, and fails even on the name of his academic affiliation. She seems to regard her sources as ventriloquist dummies, who can be made to mouth whatever bullshit comes into her head.
Every time someone has checked one of her references, its actual contents prove to be quite different from her claim. Every.single.time. Who can forget this comment in which she turns "24 days of hibernation" into "seven months of fasting"?
And now she is complaining about fabrication and miattribution. Heh.
@Narad--
I don't think Emily's "misattributions" are imagined; rather they're fabricated.
Emily at 509: (emphasis added)
Emily denies her own words: (emphasis added again)
Emily is a liar.
A challenge for the community: Find one of Emily's citations where her description of the contents is not fabricated, and is actually supported by the cited source.
Well, rats. I also made merry with her claims of misattribution, and even used the word "fabricated." But mine got caught up by the moderation filter! (sniffle)
herr doktor @ 557: boy are you a hard taskmaster or what? That would be like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack (if we are restricting ourselves to published scientific papers, that is - she's probably fairly accurate on the woo-meister websites).
I should myself take the trouble to credit JGC for fact-checking the citation about dwarf lemurs going "for 7 months without any food".
re 550 Calli :
"It's true -- most fevers that the average person will encounter are self-limiting. They'll resolve no matter what you do or don't do".
Nonsense & you DON'T know it, & therin lies the problem. Read Fever: Metabolic Asset or Liability? Organ Metabolism & Nutrition; 1994 & learn something about fevers.
Try feeding, exercising & drugging anyone with a fever & see if that spontaneously resolves, like you assert. Good luck.
"Your experience? How do you *know*? You refuse to keep any sort of records that would allow you to test that"
You obviously have no experience at all.
I refuse to keep any records, now you assert, again without any evidence. Why do you medical sycophants have to fabricate things, is it because you have so little knowledge of natural principles in health, you then attack the player not the ball?
"That makes you sad? It makes me furious. Not because the boy died; that happens, and it's always a tragedy. But that you would pile on that tragedy and blame his parents for taking him to get proper medical care, and say that's what caused his demise. Yes, high fever can kill, directly, though if the fever is from an infection, it's more likely the infection caused the death. Of course, *you* know all the answers".
Miss ignoramus attacking the player again. I never blame the sufferer.I blame the causes of the disease. If the causes are adopted by a person, like smoking, drinking, jumping off a building, then, it's called responsibility.
Doesn't your beloved SBM say smoking causes lung cancer? Who's blaming who?
And I don't know all the answers, I'm not young enough for that.
But I do know some things. And I know this. Had that little boy been looked after hygienically,instead of continually drugged by an SBM (Seriously Bad Medic), he would have had an infinitely better chance of celebrating his 17th birthday this year.
I also know that you see nothing wrong with prescibing anti-pyretics for 4 consecutive days to a febrile boy, who was only deteriorating, all the while defending such actions as "proper medical care".
Just imagine if that little boy was taken to a "real"doctor, but one who practiced differently, not so quick to use drugs. Would you remain silent then? No way!
What if the boy had been taken to CAM doctor, you would be calling for his/her head.
But no, your attitude is, if a "real" doctor is involved, dishing out "real medicine" then too bad. We'll all shut up, say bad luck, better luck next time & we'll all go to the Holy Church of Modern Medicine next Sunday.
No wonder there are literally millions of people visiting AltMed practitioners, flocking to alternative websites & questioning the medical love-in with Big Pharma. And it will increase,as the truth gradually comes out.
You're part of the problem, not the solution.
@529 Alison
Yeah, those constant aftershocks must be a bitch. I didn't really realise until the NZ shocks happened that Aussies are pretty lucky. No fault lines, few hurricanes, tsunamis or other things. Then again, we get bushfires, droughts and floods. I hope it settles down for all of us, but it sounds like it's only getting worse - potentially due to AGW.
@530 Emily
Yes, and what if the issue is asthma? Coughing certainly doesn't allow a person to breath better, and yet that's exactly one of the symptoms that can occur when one is trying to do just that. Also, if all that stuff is designed to keep us alive ("even if unsuccessfully"), what's the point of doing nothing again?
As usual the rest of your comment is contradictory with your other statements/beliefs and totally devoid of definitions/specificity which would make your words have any useful meaning. There's no way you would have studied science even in high school, as it would have taught you that observing the real world is necessary to understanding it. In the real world, the body doesn't have unlimited ability to repair itself. In the real world, autoimmune diseases exist. In the real world, you would be killing your patients because you don't bother to observe and notate anything properly.
@531 Emily
And when removing oneself from a dusty area doesn't solve the issue? I cleaned every inch of my house and still was asthmatic.
Where did all those microorganisms go? You started off your arguments talking about them and now you act like they don't exist. Ah, the "I can't see it so it's not there" fallacy again.
Yeah, you need to take an English course. You use words in ways most people don't.
Translates to: be healthy by being healthy. No, no circular reasoning there.
@532 Emily
In other words, victim blaming.
You know what would be nice - if you actually specified what these "causes" were.
More victim blaming.
Oh, so now they didn't choose to not eat, they were experiencing "anorexia" and "dietary compromise"? Shit, that pedestal of yours gets higher and higher, Regina Emily. You contradict yourself even in the next paragraph.
You know what I love about you? Your complete refusal to get away from anecdotes and your several admissions that anecdotes aren't data. And yet you continue to do it anyway!
@533 Emily
You seem to not understand the word "trying" or "successful". Yes, some mechanisms are designed to save the body. The point is that they don't always work. And two results occur: one, that a person dies; two, that a person lives with injuries that make their life difficult. And of course in order to prevent either one, a person must intervene in that "defensive" process. You agree with this: and yet you disagree.
Sigh... I wish you'd just pick a side and stick with it.
Or the problem is with you.
Yeah yeah sure sure. Circular reasoning again whereby the cause is something magical and ethereal and incapable of being described, but somehow manages to be both a symptom/cause or treatment. Or something. I can't keep track anymore.
'Fess up Emily: I'd have more respect for you if you just admitted to victim-blaming and a lack of experience with actual life-threatening illnesses. It'd be just as annoying but at least it would be honest. Skirting around everything and acting like you've got nothing to hide in the meantime is just pure wrongness.
Yet another example where you say a cause for something irrelevant like it somehow proves some other cause is true. IF HYPOTHESIS A IS TRUE, THAT DOES NOT MEAN HYPOTHESIS B IS ALSO TRUE. IF HYPOTHESIS A IS FALSE, THAT DOES NOT PROVE HYPOTHESIS B TRUE. Each stands and falls on its own merits.
As Lilady said at #535 "Thanks for playing bullshit bingo with us, Emily." That was fun... but when you start reusing the same bingo slots it's time to move on.
@537 Alison
And she'd end up having a few cards short of a deck ;)
@538 Emily
Your kids still aren't "protected". What you live in a world where broken legs never happen? Oh right, your kids DIDN'T get the flu after all.... sigh...
If Natural Hygiene works so well, how come they got the flu?
My definition of insanity is being too darn biased to understand that "common sense" is a lie. And once again, you're ignoring replies on previously covered issues.
@539 Emily
Yeah, but seeing as how you couldn't be bothered explaining what either of those two things are, I'd say it's irrelevant as a point proving your side. PS. You don't explain what those "other things" are again. Boy you really don't like specificity do you?
I suppose those judges were in on the Big Milk conspiracy too.
Well, there's one thing I can agree on ;)
@541 Emily
Victim blaming.
Victim blaming.
Victim blaming, with an overall dash of unabashedly being unable or unwilling to state why anyone gets sick in the first place. But I guess in a world where nothing is fatal or remotely injurious, one can get away with that crap. Man, I wish I lived in your fantasy world, it sounds so much better than my mentally-ill one. What is the cause of mental illness by the way?
@543 Emily
A whole comment about conspiracies and religion. And no evidence to back anything up. Utterly utterly predictably FAIL.
And you've never defined your terms in such a way as to be understandable by anyone but yourself. If you can't even be bothered to explain the basics, then I think I can dismiss the rest out of hand.
You're the one making the claim that it works; you're the one that needs to show the evidence. Vaccines have plenty of evidence that they do work and with minimal risk; you're the one who needs to show that they don't.
If I saw your family, I have no doubt that you genuinely love them and will do anything you can to help them. That doesn't make you right, and it doesn't make you anything other than either seriously deluded, ignorant of proper logic and science, or extremely misinformed. I won't apologise for thinking you are ignorant of the evidence and/or blinded by your own bias. My mother happens to believe in a lot of incorrect medical stuff too, but that doesn't prevent me from appreciating and understanding her need to try to help; she's just misinformed and/or ignorant of many medical issues and not well-educated at spotting logical fallacies. She also doesn't realise the importance of reading the research despite being a smart person in general; she tends to take people's word for it when it comes to medical issues. I have the same opinion of her as I do of you, with one minor exception: she doesn't try to "pilot" other people and for that you have earned less respect.
Yeah, this is *exactly* the same as that. Godwinned again.
PS. It's never a good idea to try that tactic with someone with Jewish heritage. It only convinces them that you're even more of an ass than they originally thought.
Is it me or is Emily now actively avoiding my comments?
I guess I must have posed questions and written comments that cut way too close for her comfort. I guess she can't admit her own bias is the same of other humans. I guess she can't account for luck. She can't account for her own financial priviledge or her lack of understanding of history. She can't account for the fact that the "fallen human" has not walked away from the "natural order of things".
I guess she can't succinctly define "causes", "disease", "illness", "treatment" or "cure". She can't state *what* the real causes of things are. I guess she can't offer me suggestions for treating mental illness, even though she offered. I guess she can't explain what the cause of mental illness is. She can't explain why I am still sick even though I follow most of Natural Hygiene's principles and have avoided many "medical interventions" and have waited for my body to repair itself. She can't explain what it is my body is trying to repair.
I guess she can't state what her credentials are. She can't succinctly answer Chris' question without doing a song-and-dance. I guess she can't explain the toxemia term or succinctly describe the biologicial processes of a Natural Hygiene lifestyle. And I guess she can't succinctly describe the biologicial processes that make fasting different from starving.
As she is now ignoring me because of all those hard questions, I'll return the favour :)
I remain completely and utterly underwhelmed at the explanatory power and efficacy of Natural Hygiene (and/or Emily's ability to explain anything of informative value) and seriously concerned for anyone Emily comes into contact with. Thanks for playing and goom-bye.
flip:
No. It is not you, it is Emily.
She has actively avoided answering my question which was asked over two weeks ago. All she has done is make some lame excuses.
flip, your responses and questions are wonderful. The fact that "Emily" refuses to address them means that you are making her uncomfortable. Her refusal to answer real questions betrays her closed mind.
Keep going, flip.
To Flip:
I do hope you can find some salvation as you pay multiple visits to the Holy Church of Modern Medicine in the coming years. But I wouldn't hold my breath.
There the Priests, wearing surgical masks instead of rosaries,& brandishing their hypodermic needles instead of incense, will gladly annoint you with their wonder water (read drugs), until, after you have developed life-threatening co-morbidities & finally woken up to the fact that this was all one long nightmare of SBM (seriously bad medicine), you will scream out in sickness & frustration, as you drown in drugs:
'what was the name of that woman back in 2012 on Scienceblogs,the one I abused & belittled & called Emily of Contradictions, & told her she was f...... obtuse. Maybe her NH she talked about then can help me, for I must admit she did speak common sense, & her prediction was right, this path I'm on has led me to a hard landing. My health is a monumental ( sorry for the pun) mess & my doctor has said there is nothing more he can do for me...but next year there could be hope with a new drug.....Oh God I've heard that so many times before...I'm starting to see & understand what she was saying..... Emily, Emily, wherefore art though..help!'
I have already stated that I sincerely wish you all the best. And I mean it, Flip.
@563 Chris
Thanks for the encouragement, but I lost enthusiasm a couple of days ago. Plus it's getting harder to keep up as new blog posts arrive and I'm trying to keep up with all the reading.
Besides, I get the sense Emily's enthusiasm has waned too. ;)
I would like to add to my above comment that I have a high school level of science (more chemistry than biology) education, a little high school psych, and no understanding of half the stuff I read here. Terminology and other medical concepts go over my head; doesn't prevent me from spotting the flaws in an argument though. My point in saying this is to say thanks to you Chris and the others because I'm surprised I've said anything intelligent at all. :)
Emily -
I take it that you are saying it is counter to the restoration of health to put food into a sick child who is not hungry. What principle of NH does feeding a sick person who is not hungry violate? Should we listen to what our body is telling us when we have no appetite, or should we ignore that signal and do the opposite?
I am not a psychologist, but I am guessing that when Emily refers so often to the "Holy Church of Modern Medicine" and then prays that Flip will "find salvation", then there's an element of projection going on.
[Checks qualifications]
No, wait, I *am* a psychologist.
Ah, I see I have gotten a response out of you at last, Emily. Got under your skin, did I? Good.
You casually assert that you are right and I am wrong, tossing off a partial citation but not elaborating. You go on personal experience, you've said so many times. Well, my personal experience is that my own fevers last pretty much the same duration no matter what I do. In medicine, there is the old adage that a cold will last a week if you don't treat it, but will be gone in just 7 days if you do, so this is not an observation unique to myself.
I don't exercise when I have a fever. I don't make my kids exercise when they have fevers. We eat as normally as we feel able. Sometimes we use antipyretics; sometimes we don't. Depends on how icky we feel. Doesn't seem to have much affect on the overall outcome, and that's why I say what I say. Now, why do you say what you say? Have you ever tried *not* fasting during a fever?
Exception: bacterial infections. I've never had those resolve spontaneously. Oddly, every fever I've had in relation to a bacterial infection has lasted until the day after I started a course of antibiotics, no matter how long I waited to get the diagnosis and prescription....
It's odd that you say I should try feeding, exercising, and drugging anyone with a fever and see if the fever goes away. Of course it does. The body doesn't become stupid just because you've decided to try and treat some symptoms or have a sandwich. And what else would happen? Do you realize how foolish that statement sounds? The implication of your statement is an expectation that a fever cannot resolve with food, exercise, and medication, which would imply that everybody on Earth who ever had a fever has one right now if they haven't tried fasting yet. And that's obviously absurd, so I don't think you meant that.
You said you don't keep records on the thousands of people you say you have observed. If I have this wrong, it is because of what you have said. Though given how ridiculous your statement about fever was, maybe you're just an insanely bad communicator.
I will quote you directly: "The drugs & the dangerous & foolhardy interference killed him." How is that not blaming them for giving him medicine???
You contradict yourself, Emily, you abuse words, you hide behind semantics, you cite papers that do not support your contentions, and you clearly have absolutely zero interest in anything which goes against your prejudices. I shall now quote my very favorite television program (which I believe our esteemed Orac rather likes as well):
"Allow me to congratulate you. You have the most totally closed mind I have ever encountered."
Anyone else seriously getting flashbacks to Rorschach's paranoid soliloquy in the first chapter of "Watchmen"?
Seriously, emily, your delusions of grandeur were amusing, but now they're getting creepy.
Why do I get the sense that Emily might end up as one of those people that ends up dying of some very treatable disease or infection.....because she tries to treat it with "fasting."
@562 Emily
This is all repetitive... you really do only have a handful of arguments don't you? None of which back you up, none of which come with data, all of which come with your usual contradictions.
Once again you ignore the fact that SBM doctors who *do* screw up get called out on it, and that most CAM proponents get little to no oversight and/or punishment. Or did you forget what the original post was all about? (Granted, Wakefield was a straight-up fraud, but he started off as an SBM doctor)
Haha, yes, might = right. You really don't think any of these comments through, do you? Anyone with a high school education of science, biology, psych or even philosophy would see through your logical fallacies.
@566 Emily
Repeating statements about religion does not PROVE YOUR HYPOTHESIS TO WORK. It only makes you look like a conspiracy nutter.
And thank you, I'm not currently on any medications, but I'm glad to say that when I was desperate for air due to asthma that they found one that worked: note that no cleaning of rooms, no change of diet, no additional exercise, no fasting (eating is hard when you can't breath), or any other 'natural' method prevented me from having asthma. So yes, thanks to SBM I can breathe. And no thanks to 'natural hygiene' principles which didn't work at all.
Interesting, I also didn't have any side effects from the meds, unless you count being able to stop having a sore back from constant coughing, or being able to walk two paces without feeling like I was going to keel over from lack of oxygen. No long-term side effects and no short term ones either. (And no, no additional meds to get rid of side effects either. Just one inhaler)
I have abused and belittled your ideas because they are illogical and without evidence: if I've offended you then obviously you need a thicker skin than I. Clearly you can't take what you dish out.
The rest of your comment is a complete showcase of your inability to read or understand any of mine, where I clearly state (and I've pointed this out before) that I'm not enamoured with either doctors or medicine, having been party to a lot of to-ing and fro-ing between a whole bunch of them. However, like others here would state: we go with what has shown to work and what has the least amount of risk. What worked was meds, not twiddling my thumbs hoping it would get better. And I *did* twiddle my thumbs for well over a year before obtaining a med that worked. And I have *done* and am *doing* most of those Natural Hygiene principles - why don't they work for me? Is it just I'm not trying hard enough?
Yeah, I really don't care about your 'kind thoughts'. Your best wishes come in the same breath as expecting me to die at the hands of a logical fallacy. I'm perfectly happy following research and logic and avoiding your "common sense" which would have had me suffer and die from lack of oxygen, all the while insisting that I'm just not trying hard enough. You still can't provide any info as to what mental illness "repairs".
I again note you've completely avoided giving me any advice on *how* to treat my illness, and yet you again continue to state that I should give up SBM without any specific reason why *your* treatment would be better or how it works. You're full of it and I will not be kind to anyone who 'wishes me well' by suggesting I just (well, you never really say what I should do) cross my fingers and hope I don't one day wake up and kill myself. And that's every day for 20 years mind you.
Fuck, that's how close-minded you are. You're so damn ignorant or misinformed that you would actually sit there and wait for someone to kill themselves - hey, preventing that would be 'interfering' with the natural order and 'reparatory' bodily functions wouldn't it? And well, I'm just "living wrong" - even though I already practice most of the Natural Hygiene principles. I guess I just better fast... oops, no I stated I inadvertantly do that too. Somehow I'm still not better though.
And I'm supposed to be nice. There is no emoticon that fully captures the depth and width of my disgust.
But before we get really mad... Here's a really big and obvious hint: I'D CHANGE MY MIND IF YOU COULD FIND SOME PEER-REVIEWED EVIDENCE THAT SHOWED NATURAL HEALTH PRINCIPLES HAD EFFICACY AND A LOW RISK. The only thing I "bow down to" is the idea that my position is tentative. Even for SBM. You show it works, I'll leave you alone and even agree with you and defend it myself. But you can't, which is why you're full of it. I don't care what you believe: I can't see you or your life or have your experiences. I care about what can be proven whether we're in the same room or not.
Now instead of congratulating yourself for being so damn "enlightened", go back, reread comment #564, and answer the questions put to you. If you can't answer them, with peer-reviewed evidence where relevant, then you can't enlighten the rest of us. If you can, then stop wasting everyone's time and just get on with it. Dancing around is making you look like a liar and a fool.
And if you don't like being called either of those things well then, too bad. I will only respond to any further comments by directing you back to comment #564. I've lost all patience for your ignorant backwards thinking.
Put up or shut up.
@569 Occamslaser
It's clear from previous comments - or at least to me it's clear - that Emily thinks eating is moving away from the "natural order" of human lifestyle and that it should only be done occasionally. One wonders if she's ever seen a starving child. (Ah, but 'starve' and 'fast' are different... somehow)
Obviously adding food into the mix when someone is sick is interfering with the body's process of dealing with the illness. By interfering, you make it worse. Or something...
@571 Calli Arcale
No, you're right. She just doesn't remember what she said, or if she does, tries as much as possible to squirm out of it claiming we're the ones misunderstanding her. She *is* a bad communicator. She can't define her terms, she can't keep her arguments straight, and she can't or won't answer simple yes/no questions with an actual yes/no.
I totally agree. (And what is that from? Never heard the line before)
It's clear from previous comments - or at least to me it's clear - that Emily thinks eating is moving away from the "natural order" of human lifestyle and that it should only be done occasionally.
I think not. Diet is central to Natural Hygiene, and it is to be brought into conformance with the Ancient State, the nature of which, oddly enough, is the main matter of dispute. It also thus attempts to embrace a huge swath of food faddism. With "nerve energy."
@Emily:
To repeat my question:
When I person suffering from tetanus has uncontrollable muscle contractions, are those muscles contractions a reparatory symptom, or are they something other than a symptom?
And just in case Emily needs a bit of a reminder of where 'fasting' (aka starving) can get us: this link (http://www.theaucklander.co.nz/news/starved-dog-spca-shocked/1257245/) is to a story from yesterday's NZ Herald & includes an image of a dog starved near unto death by some disgusting creature (I refuse to call someone so callous & inhumane 'human'). It is not exactly a picture of bounding health. No doubt it & its 'owner' were doing something wrong. (As a dog person myself I found this story profoundly upsetting & disturbing.)
"Allow me to congratulate you. You have the most totally closed mind I have ever encountered."
Like flip, I don't know where this comes from? (I love it, by the way!) It sounds like something that the current Sherlock Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch) would say :-)
It is Dr Who. From 1963, according to my Google source.
re Flip @ 575
"What principle of NH does feeding a sick person who is not hungry violate?
Obviously adding food into the mix when someone is sick is interfering with the body's process of dealing with the illness. By interfering, you make it worse. "
Exactly.
I realise we are becoming increasingly quarantined from nature, but I contend we have these instincts for a reason.
I realise we are becoming increasingly quarantined from nature, but I contend we have these instincts for a reason.
That's a pretty vague teleology.
"adding food into the mix when someone is sick is interfering with the body's process of dealing with the illness,,,"
Well. I'm shocked. Shocked!! I tell you.
A proponent of Victorian style home nursing who doesn't have the skills or understand the value of beef broth, chicken soup or any other "invalid cookery".
And who has apparently never uttered the words - 'You must keep up your strength'.
Emily -
I asked you
You replied,
By "these instincts", you are referring in this instance to the loss of appetite that may occur when someone is sick, is that correct? And you are saying that we have that loss of appetite for a reason, and it is natural, and if we ignore that signal and do the opposite of what it is telling us, we are not contributing to health, but rather working against the body's attempt to restore health. Is that an accurate statement of your (and NH's) principles?
I just want to know what Emily knows about the three laws of thermodynamics. I know she is steadfastly refusing to answer my original question.
@ flip:
Let me be the first to say it: The defence rests. Case closed! (applause)
Read more about depression, possibly text materials for psychologists and therapists. There's a guy named Leahy. Find out how to monitor the intensity of your symptoms. Communication with the like-minded is a step in the right direction. It's not easy to do this on your own. Art may provide a rock-strewn, thorny pathway through the garden of delights but it certainly beats slogging through the muck.
She's steadfastly ignoring a lot of questions, Chris :-) I'm still waiting to hear her take on evolution...
squirrelite:
Yep! Though the actual quote is about ten years younger (very long-running series; it's still on today). It's from the Third Doctor serial "Frontier in Space".
@ squirrelite & Calli Arcale: Are direct quotes from movie scripts acceptable here as comments? How about bastardized quotes?:
"Frankly my dear Emily, I don't give a damn".
Go ahead, lilady!
I enjoy all your comments.
I had an inspiration for one myself last night but it will take some extended editing.
I'll try to make myself do it tonight.
Remember, good satire leads to laughter and you know the medical importance of that.
"Lawdy, Miss Scarlett, I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' babies...or anything else!" - Emily
584 WilliamOccamslaser
"I asked you
What principle of NH does feeding a sick person who is not hungry violate?
You replied,
'I realise we are becoming increasingly quarantined from nature, but I contend we have these instincts for a reason'.
By "these instincts", you are referring in this instance to the loss of appetite that may occur when someone is sick, is that correct? And you are saying that we have that loss of appetite for a reason, and it is natural, and if we ignore that signal and do the opposite of what it is telling us, we are not contributing to health, but rather working against the body's attempt to restore health. Is that an accurate statement of your (and NH's) principles?"
There's not much hope for us if they,(ie, my statement & your explanation), are incorrect.
Maybe if wer'e wrong ( & nature's wrong) we will see the birds sing all night, the sun go for a gallop around the earth & we'll be able to sneak a sunrise past a rooster!
re Chris @ 585:
"The four laws of thermodynamics are:
Zeroth law of thermodynamics: If two systems are in thermal equilibrium with a third system, they must be in thermal equilibrium with each other. This law helps define the notion of temperature.
First law of thermodynamics: Heat is a form of energy. Because energy is conserved, the internal energy of a system changes as heat flows in or out of it. Equivalently, perpetual motion machines of the first kind are impossible.
Second law of thermodynamics: The entropy of any closed system not in thermal equilibrium almost always increases. Closed systems spontaneously evolve towards thermal equilibrium -- the state of maximum entropy of the system -- in a process known as "thermalization". Equivalently, perpetual motion machines of the second kind are impossible.
Third law of thermodynamics: The entropy of a system approaches a constant value as the temperature approaches zero. The entropy of a system at absolute zero is typically zero, and in all cases is determined only by the number of different ground states it has".
Now what would you like me to do with them Chris, repeal them?
Re 571 Calli
"It's odd that you say I should try feeding, exercising, and drugging anyone with a fever and see if the fever goes away. Of course it does"
Just don't ty it on my recommendation.
"Exception: bacterial infections. I've never had those resolve spontaneously. Oddly, every fever I've had in relation to a bacterial infection has lasted until the day after I started a course of antibiotics, no matter how long I waited to get the diagnosis and prescription...."
Are you saying that bacterial infections need to be treated medically?
Chris:
I have now posted 2 replies to your Q on the laws of thermodynamics, & both have not come through.
So maybe the moderator is out of energy.
Be that as it may, what would like me to do with these laws- repeal them?
Emily -
So according to the core principles of NH, one of the worst things we can do in an attempt to restore and maintain health is to ignore nature and the body's own obvious appetite signals. As you say, "there's not much hope for us" if we take it upon ourselves to override what the body is so clearly telling us, and instead do the opposite.
So it goes directly against the core principles of Natural Hygiene to eat when we are not hungry, especially in an attempt to restore health.
And, of course, it goes directly against that same core principle of Natural Hygiene to not eat when we are hungry, especially in an attempt to restore health. Or, to use another term for that behavior:
To fast.
Emily:
No. I want you to explain what they mean. All you have done is a cut and paste, now you must tell us what they mean.
And what is worse, you cut and pasted them from wikipedia.
So, for the tl;dr reader who's coming back to this thread after several weeks away, can I fill out my denialist bingo card (the alt-med edition) with Emily's posts?
Emily:
Yes I am. I'm sure you will say they do not need to be treated medically, and the correct response to my kidney infection earlier this week would have been to fast, since that seems to be your answer to everything. Perhaps a forty-day fast? I wonder what that would have done, given that fasting gives the kidneys more stuff to deal with (the byproducts of breaking down body tissue to supply energy). During a kidney infection is really not a great time to throw extra trouble their way. Meanwhile, I'm on amoxicillin. Been on it since Tuesday, and I feel great. In fact, on Wednesday, I woke up with more energy than I'd had in a week. I'll take the medicine long enough to be reasonably sure of having killed all of the stuff in my urinary tract. I don't mess around with bacteria. You let them get established and they just get harder to evict.
But tell me -- what *would* you do, if your patient developed symptoms of a urinary tract infection? For argument, let's say this particular infection's symptoms include fever. (Not all do.) What would be your course of action? For a medical professional, this is an easy case; what is it for you?
@ Composer99: I filled up a dozen or more bingo cards...we need a larger bingo card with this persistent troll.
@576 Narad
Yeah, but how does fasting fit into that? It seems to me that in some form, eating (most likely eating processed food) is bad in the realm of Natural Hygiene.
But yes, overall I agree.
@580 Squirrelelite
Typical. I only got into the new series of Doctor Who and haven't seen any of the old ones. Just another excuse to find and watch! :)
@586 Denice
Thanks. I agree with all of your points and will look into those materials - I've not heard of Leahy before.
@599 Composer99
Yes, pretty much.
@600 Calli Arcale
Sorry to hear you're sick. Feel better soon!
@581 Emily
That's not my question. I quoted OccamsLaser, who asked the question. Yet another example of your inability to read.
Go back, reread comment #564, and answer the questions put to you. Put up or shut up.
And maybe, for the fun, I'll add one more question: did early humans (ie. pre-agriculture) ever die from illness? ... Actually, another one because I forgot it: what are the risks and contraindications for Natural Health principles?
@592 Emily
That's the longest "yes" I've ever seen to a yes/no question. Go back, reread comment #564, and answer the questions put to you. Put up or shut up.
But I see you're not replying to my tough questions anyway... Ah, it's nice to be ignored! ;)
Whoohoo, I'm on an ignored list!
Seriously though, it must be tough to face up to someone who completely contradicts your worldview. I guess all those post-natally depressed mothers are not in your knitting circle. Must be difficult for you to comprehend a world that doesn't match up with your own experiences. Oh, the cognitive dissonance!
"Nerve energy" arises spontaneously as a result of rest. Fasting is rest. There's not really anything more here; Emily hasn't even gotten around to explaining how Shelton lost his regenerative powers. I don't think I've gotten an answer to the explicit question whether there is some critical density of nerve energy or what is supposed to be going on.
re 600 Calli Arcale,
But you haven't answered why bacterial infections need anti-biotics, yet viruses don't ( I know a/b's are ineffective against intra-cellular obligates).
What happens with un-blasted bacterial infections, prey tell?
re 596 WilliamOccumsLaser:
Excellent understanding Occum. Now we heading in the right direction.
Could you, & I know this might be difficult but, it would really be appreciated, if by the kindness of your own heart, from your compassionate essence,if at all possible, could you please offer Flip some private coaching. I will even fund it.
@Emily - please give us the standard NH treatment for Rabies....
Back in post 532, Emily said that her children caught measles after a lengthy airline trip overseas. I just have to wonder, could they have visited an area where measles are endemic? Wouldn't that argue that they were exposed to, I don't know, germs?
Since she denies the existence of germs, I guess they became Ill because their hygienic needs were not properly attended to.
So Emily, which one is it? Germs, or you neglected their health?
Wherever "overseas" means to Emily...her (3? or 4?) unimmunized kids, were exposed to the virus "overseas" and definitely infected *vulnerable people aboard the flights.
* "hygienist"/germ promoter is so absolutely clueless that she doesn't give a rat's posterior, that young infants and immune-suppressed/immune compromised people, are vulnerable.
Emily -
I wrote,
You replied,
So therefore, you agree that it goes directly against a core principle of Natural Hygiene to fast (to not eat even though we are hungry), especially in an attempt to restore health. Fasting is directly counter to one of the core principles of Natural Hygiene. That is, per the principle you have now clearly and repeatedly agreed with, just as that unfortunate boy should not have been given food when his body was not sending a signal for it, one shouldn't deprive the body of food when ones body is sending a signal to eat.
Fasting represents the exact opposite of the central principle of Natural Hygiene, as you have explained it, and therefore fasting should never be undertaken by a proponent or adherent of Natural Hygiene. It is as unnatural an act as can be conceived of, and thus can only serve to diminish health, not restore it.
Oh, wow, an attempted pleomorphism gotcha. Somebody get out the Rife microscope.
Huh? Doxycycline isn't effective against Rocky Mountain spotted fever all of a sudden?
This has got to be the worst koan I've ever heard.
@606 Emily
You're an idiot. I understood perfectly what he was saying, but you missed a salient point: he was trying to understand your position. He's not agreeing with it. More to the point, he's showing how Natural Hygiene contradicts itself; see comment #610. (I'll fund you a trip to an English reading comprehension class)
Furthermore, I can understand a concept, but that doesn't mean I understand *how* it works or whether there is any efficacy or low risk.
And why should another person elucidate *your* argument *for you*? Is it because you can't actually describe anything in detail?
Reread comment #564 on the Wakefield thread, and answer the questions put to you. Put up or shut up.
re 608:
"Back in post 532, Emily said that her children caught measles after a lengthy airline trip overseas. I just have to wonder, could they have visited an area where measles are endemic? Wouldn't that argue that they were exposed to, I don't know, germs?
Since she denies the existence of germs, I guess they became Ill because their hygienic needs were not properly attended to.
So Emily, which one is it? Germs, or you neglected their health?"
I have never said I don't believe in micro-organisms. Indeed my body ( & yours ) is one cell of ours for every ten micro-organisms. We are not who we think we are.
Why aren't we sick all the time? Germs are ubiquitous- around us, within us & on us. In our digestive tract alone we have about 3 lbs of bacteria, mainly good, some bad.
No, they are out there, in there, everywhere.
But they are not THE cause of disease. They are associated with disease, & they can act opportunistically in favourable conditions (for them). But you will never, ever convince me that they are the enemy & the sole cause of disease.
re 610 Occumslaser:
This is good stuff, Occum, & I appreciate your feedback & understanding.
There are 2 types of fast.
One is conducted when the person has an acute illness- influenza, measles, pertussis, cholera, typhoid, acute tonsillitis, acute pneumonia etc, you get the drift.
Here the person is obviously quite sick- often a fever, no appetite, no energy, no libido, no humour. Easy: go a couple of days without eating ANYTHING, not even a slice of fruit.In 24-48 hours the patient is comfortable, out of pain & on the mend!
Caveat: depending on the severity of the condition, some small amounts of fruit or vegetable or soups are OK.
Rest is the dominant requirement. And when you fast you rest everything, your digestive system, your N/S & your M/S system.
The second type of fast is that which you are referring to.
This is where someone has a chronic illness, such as auto-immune disease, diabetes, ulcers, intractable asthma, migraines, kidney stones etc etc.
This fast is best initiated in people who complain of eating despite not being hungry. Thus they have lost their appetite for food, but have continued eating, sometimes for years, under the mistaken notion that they "have to keep their strength up".
On occasions, a patient in this latter category is fasted, with an appetite, & I agree that this appears to contradict the NH philosophy.
So what else can I say, Occum, in this case you are absolutely correct.
re 609 l'lady:
"Wherever "overseas" means to Emily...her (3? or 4?) unimmunized kids, were exposed to the virus "overseas" and definitely infected *vulnerable people aboard the flights.
* "hygienist"/germ promoter is so absolutely clueless that she doesn't give a rat's posterior, that young infants and immune-suppressed/immune compromised people, are vulnerable".
Are you saying that people who are vaccinated won't get the disease against which they were vaccinated?
Plenty get it, it's a lottery. Whether you are vaccinated or unvaccinated, there is no protection except good health & good, rational management.
I'm surprised you didn't call my children "disease vectors" this time, or use the words moronic, conspiracist tea bagger, canary party, "neglect & abuse"....
You softening a little?
Maybe you have been infected by an outbreak of common sense!!
The Fail is strong with this one.
Emily:Plenty get it, it's a lottery. Whether you are vaccinated or unvaccinated, there is no protection except good health & good, rational management.
Then kindly explain what happened that only 10% of children got measles in 1970 than in 1960 in the USA?
So, since your kids got it, we must assume* that you did not keep them in good health and under good, rational management.
Unless good health and rational management aren't any protection?
*ad arguendo
@Emily:
Those who get vaccinated against (for example) measles are less likely to catch measles than those who don't. It's conceivable that those parents who vaccinate their children are better at raising their children in a healthy manner than those parents who don't vaccinate, but what are the vaccinating parents doing differently than non vaccinating parents to improve their children's health?
To go at it from a different direction: if someone catches a full blown case of the measles (the wild strain), they almost never catch the measles again. This is due to adaptive immunity. The measles vaccine is meant to provoke an adaptive immune response without causing the symptoms of a full blown case (though it isn't as good at doing so as the wild strain). Is there some principle of NH which says that the measles vaccine can't do this? Or does NH say that something besides adaptive immunity is the reason that people don't catch the measles twice?
One has to wonder where or how the *hygienist* ever treated anyone with cholera or typhoid. Perhaps when her (3? or 4?) unimmunized children contracted measles...they also brought back cholera and salmonella typhi. You know what they say about avoiding typhoid, don't you, Emily? Boil it, cook it, peel it or...forget it. So do you fast before or after you become infected with salmonella typhi?
Okay Emily, what percentage of children who receive the recommended 2-dose measles vaccines, do not have complete protective immunity?
Emily @ 605:
Ah, answering my question with a question? ;-) Your question was whether it needed antibiotics, and I said yes. But I will answer your *new* question, of course. I wonder when you will see fit to answer mine.
Antibiotics do not work on viruses because they target various aspects of cell biology. It may be the cell membrane, it may be nutrient transport mechanisms peculiar to bacteria, it may be the internal machinery of the non-nucleated cell (particularly its reproductive machinery) . . . . There are many targets within the bacterium. But the virus possesses none of these things. Consequently, it cannot be affected by the antibiotic. There are antiviral drugs, but developing them is a big challenge. The biggest problem is that viruses are essentially inert when they are outside of the cell (so there's no activity to inhibit at that point), and once they're *in* the cell, they become largely inaccessible. It's not impossible, but it's not something that's going to be discovered by accident as penicillin was.
"Blasted" . . . what a crude word. An untreated bacterial infection may resolve on its own, or it may continue to progress until it causes major tissue damage or even becomes septic, which would be the last step before death. (Some infections can kill without becoming septic, such as pneumonia, by destroying the lungs' gas exchange capability.) Amildly infected wound may resolve on its own, but even if it does, scarring is likely to be worse due to tissue damage from the bacteria. A small, easily closed wound could be instead a huge, gaping chasm that takes years to regrow enough skin to close it.
Take my recent infection. It was a urinary tract infection. In the bad old days, people had to deal with these without any real treatment. (Nobody had yet discovered how cranberry or blueberry juice might help, and in any case, that's more of a preventative than a treatment.) Mine had already progressed to the right kidney. The culture isn't back yet, but it was most likely E. coli, and not the bad kind; most UTIs are caused by a normal human-strain E. coli that has migrated from the gut (where it is helpful) to the urinary tract (where it is not). If I had left it untreated, I would be risking damage to my kidneys. I was already feeling very weak; I would have become weaker, and eventually would have likely begun losing function in that kidney. If I was lucky, the infection would eventually be overcome by my immune system (it was definitely working on it; the urinalysis detected white blood cells) and the left kidney would go on working fine. But I would have lost my redundancy, and the next infection could kill me. Of course, if I was not lucky, the infection would not stop at the kidney.
So. I have answered your new questions. Will you answer mine? What would you do, confronted with the symptoms of a urinary tract infection? If it helps, I can provide my exact symptoms: low-grade fever off and on for two days, lethargy for three, mild lower abdominal discomfort for one day (which I'll point out was about when my period was due -- I have regular cycles, and it did arrive the next day), mild irritation during urination for one day, urgency for one day. That was how I presented to the doctor. Physical exam revealed no fever at that time, normal BP and heart rate, tenderness in the lower abdomen and the right flank.
Emily,
I have posted a reply to you about why antibiotics are helpful against bacteria but not viruses, and giving you the actual symptoms that I presented with on Tuesday. I'm hoping that you will now see your way to answering the question about how you'd handle the symptoms of a UTI.
I'd be interested to know how many people with cholera survive for a couple of days with nothing at all other than pure water to drink.
re 564 Flip:
"I guess she can't offer me suggestions for treating mental illness, even though she offered. I guess she can't explain what the cause of mental illness is. She can't explain why I am still sick even though I follow most of Natural Hygiene's principles and have avoided many "medical interventions" and have waited for my body to repair itself".
You said it yourself. I tried to offer some advice previously, but you screamed like a banshee.
1) Mental illness, like all chronic diseases, indeed ALL diseases, is muti-factorial. It doesn't have ONE cause.It may have one primary cause, but other contributory causes will play a role.
The role of the enlightened practitioner, "real" or "unreal", is to help the patient come to understand that disease generally, & their disease specifically, has CAUSES, which, if pathology reversal is the goal, MUST be removed.
Then the doctor, hopefully, 'educates' the patient that most of said causes are within their control. Some, like their genetic predisposition, previous accidents, abusive childhoods, to name a few, are not.
There are nutritional causes, such as just following the SAD (Standard American/ Australian Diet), there are mental causes ( unmanaged or uncompensated stress, negative emotions, free-floating hostility, perfectionism, catastrophising, trying to change people, etc etc ), there are causes of ommission- sedentariness, lack of goodwill to others & lack of self-awareness etc - & there are causes of commission- excess exercise, overwork, excess sex, excess food etc.
You would do well to divest yourself of the medical notion of one cause = one disease.
If health requires more than one variable, then so does disease!
Then the good doctor encourages not only removal of said sauses, but also encourages the person to supply their lives with the conditions of health.
It is that simple & that difficult, & requires a lengthy consultation.
Therefore, I can no more tell you the causes of your mental illness than I can of Lindsay Lohan's- I don't know either of you.
2)Please tell me what NH principles & practices have you followed? What medical interventions have you avoided & accepted?
The other answers, such as toxemia, enervation etc you can find in my previous posts & my recommended reading/web sites.
The bottom line is this: health has to be earned, it has to be built. It can never be bought, transferred, conferred, injected or swallowed.
To think otherwise is folly!
Rest is the dominant requirement. And when you fast you rest everything, your digestive system, your N/S & your M/S system.
I do find mild humor in this continued use of the virgule to attempt to suggest some sort of medical expertise (a/b, m/o, etc.). What's "M/S," musculoskeletal? More than anything, it reminds me of the peculiar affinity of homeopaths for fake Latin.
You would do well to divest yourself of the medical notion of one cause = one disease.
Um, Emily, are you explicitly denying the core tenet of the Infinite Variety of Appearance or simply trying to further obfuscate? You would do well to answer Matthew's question about measles in this regard.
Emily -
If the subject has no appetite, it is not fasting to not eat. Just to keep our terms consistent, fasting, as it is being used in the context of this discussion, is making an intellectual decision to not eat even though there is hunger. Therefore, simply not eating when we're not hungry is not fasting, by definition. It's important to keep that term narrow to avoid confusion.
Just to be clear, fasting, defined as not eating despite having an appetite, does not merely "appear" to contradict the NH philosophy; it directly violates it, and thus it should never be done if one believes in the core principle of Natural Hygiene as you have articulated it. If one believes otherwise, he or she is quite simply not practicing Natural Hygiene at all, any more than if he or she believes an unhealthy person with no appetite should be given food, as in the case of the boy you discussed.
So, either the core principle of Natural Hygiene is invalid -- which, of course, would invalidate the system as a whole -- or fasting (not eating despite hunger) cannot be a part of Natural Hygiene. The two options are mutually exclusive.
re 626 WilliamOccamslaser:
No,no,no.
Fasting is the voluntary & complete abstinence from food, while drinking water as required.
Appetite & not eat= fast
Anorexic & not eat= fast.
Emily -
I will rephrase.
Not eating despite having an appetite, does not merely "appear" to contradict the NH philosophy; it directly violates it, and thus it should never be done if one believes in the core principle of Natural Hygiene as you have articulated it. If one believes otherwise, he or she is quite simply not practicing Natural Hygiene at all, any more than if he or she believes an unhealthy person with no appetite should be given food, as in the case of the boy you discussed.
So, either the core principle of Natural Hygiene is invalid -- which, of course, would invalidate the system as a whole -- or fasting (not eating despite hunger) cannot be a part of Natural Hygiene. The two options are mutually exclusive.
@613 Emily
Reread comment #564 on the Wakefield thread, and answer the questions put to you. One of the questions there was to define what the "causes" are. You can't simply announce 'cause' is NOT something without explaining what IT IS INSTEAD.
@614 Emily
Ah, so this is an answer to "how does fasting work and what biological processes occur in the body"? Or "what's the difference between 'fast' and 'starve'? No, no answer there.
Wow... I can't believe my eyes. She admits it!! With of course, the caveat "appears". *Rolls eyes*
@615 Emily
You have proof of this of course? Nope, none there either. Why do I feel like I'm in a pantomime? "It's over there. ... No, behind you... Look under the rock... Haha, it's moved, look behind you..."
@623 Emily
How ambigious of you. What is the one primary cause then? And why, if there are *many* causes, does Natural Hygiene promote a handful of 'treatments'? *How* does one 'treatment' fix things that have *many* underlying causes?
Yes, so what would you recommend I remove? My brain perhaps? How can I 'reverse' suicidal thoughts?
I can't find the post right this second, but you have not sufficiently given advice. I asked if fasting would work for me, you said no. I asked what principles of Natural Hygiene would cure my illness, you simply reiterated that they would (but never defined which ones or how). I pointed out that I act on *most* of Natural Hygiene principles already - healthy eating, exercise, not smoking, not taking meds - and why I'm not better: you simply reiterate that I should be using Natural Hygiene principles. (One would think at this point you would suggest fasting and contradict yourself as you are wont to do)
You have NOT at any time explained what causes mental illness, or why I am like this in the first place (although you did say you didn't know why). In that case, what makes Natural Hygiene principles relevant to my life? It can't explain it, so it can't 'treat' it (even though it doesn't 'treat').
Seriously Emily you need to learn the difference between an answer and an ambiguity. Look it up if you don't know what the word is. In the meantime, yes, I'll scoff at your answer. It's a non-answer answer and I refuse to accept it as anything but that.
And when they're not "within their control"? What does Natural Hygiene suggest? I have had no genetic predispositions, no accidents, no abusive childhoods. What is the cause?
"SAD" usually refers to Seasonal Affective Disorder, not any kind of diet. Although I'd love to know what the fuck an Australian diet looks like? Huh, what's an 'Australian diet'?
The rest of your sentence is pure unabashed victim blaming. I must have been stressed out for no apparent reason as a 10 year old to become suicidal. I must have had "negative emotions" or ideas of "perfection". I guess participating in about 5 different extra-curricular sports was 'sedentary', or that I was just a "bad kid" even though I wasn't. I wonder how one has so much sex they want to die at the age of 10.
My god, you are a completely awful person. You are actually now telling me to my face that it was ALL MY FAULT.
Repeat: YOU ARE BLAMING ME FOR MY ILLNESS.
You are completely and utterly so far up your middle-class worldview that you can't see anything other than your wackadoodle perfect notion. Yep, you're the one with ideas of perfection, not me. Before I was humouring you or considering you just a misinformed but well-meaning person. Now I have lost any respect for you.
Where the fuck have I ever said that? I will gladly admit there are different causes. What's more, SBM not only recognises the different causes of things, but provides treatments that APPLY SPECIFICALLY TO THAT CAUSE, instead of waving one's hands and using ONE SET OF RULES FOR EVERYTHING. I called it before: in Emily's world, there's one cause/treatment to rule them all. The cause is victim blaming and the treatment is goodness knows what.
I'd like to know what Natural Hygiene says my cause is: I already know what SBM has to say about it. I'll give you a big clue: YOU HAVE NOT LISTED THE CAUSE. Not once.
So you don't know me but I've given lots of clues already. What would you use to diagnose my cause? Do you have a checklist or something? If so, get it out and ask me some questions. I'll reply, you'll tell me what the cause is and then we can go about making a plan to fix the 'cause'.
But you won't because you're full of it.
What cause should I remove? Which on your victim-bashing list should I do/avoid to get better?
How magnimous of you. Announce that Natural Hygiene will fix all my problems and then refuse to give me any clue as to how to apply it. I love how you hide behind ambiguities in order to pretend you have no specific ideas of how or if anything works.
Ah, the non-answer answer again.
F* you. A 10 year old has to 'earn' health? How does one go about doing that? Presumably your kids are healthy - well, except for that *one* time - how did you teach your kids to 'earn' health? How do you earn it as a one-year old?
I posted this on the other thread, but just in case: I think I've made a decision: I'll reply to others here but not to you. No matter how much I want to strangle your arguments into submission. It's clear you're a crank and no amount of repetitious debunking of every canard will get you to move on. But thanks for proving my point: that if backed into an argumentary corner of having to answer questions and nothing else, you freak out and resort repeating yourself and showing yourself as nothing but a high-minded victim-blaming middle-class self-absorbed ignorant close-minded crank.
I'd just like to add though, that based on your most recent comments, I think it's safe to say that your initial statement of not having anything to promote or any financial interest at stake, was a blatant lie. Others may have noticed it, but nobody has mentioned it really and I think it's worth pointing out. Especially given that you're likely to be treating someone who is mentally ill and will end up self-harming because they just weren't a good little kid who "earned" good health.
re 619 Mathew Cline:
"The measles vaccine is meant to provoke an adaptive immune response without causing the symptoms of a full blown case (though it isn't as good at doing so as the wild strain). Is there some principle of NH which says that the measles vaccine can't do this? Or does NH say that something besides adaptive immunity is the reason that people don't catch the measles twice?"
Sure the vaccination can 'provoke' the immune system. This is what we don't want, especially via the route given.
I, & many practitioners, including medical, oppose this. Naturally inhaled measles droplet are taken care of in the mouth, the gut, the blood etc. by our self-defence systems.
This route is bypassed with vaccinations.
It is an insult to their little systems, & that is why their bodies mount a defence called fever.
And this is one major reason why there are measles & fever complications:
From PubMed:
"Take steps to lower a fever if you or your child is uncomfortable, vomiting, dried out (dehydrated), or not sleeping well. Remember, the goal is to lower, not eliminate, the fever.
Here are some guidelines for taking medicine to lower a fever:
Acetaminophen (Tylenol) and ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin) help reduce fever in children and adults. Sometimes doctors advise you to use both types of medicine.
Take acetaminophen every 4 - 6 hours. It works by turning down the brain's thermostat.
Take ibuprofen every 6 - 8 hours. DO NOT use ibuprofen in children younger than 6 months old.
Aspirin is very effective for treating fever in adults. DO NOT give aspirin to a child unless your child's doctor tells you to".
Wow! So giving ibuprofen when they are 7 mths is OK.
If lowering the brain's thermostat is good science, then I'm proud to be a harsh critic.
Why is it that common sense is so uncommon today, in matters of health especially?
Then again, intelligence & stupidity are not incompatible.
On a comment in moderation I obviously have issues spelling "magnanimous".
re 628:
There are many principles in NH, not just 'the' core principle.
One of them is to eat when hungry, drink when thirsty, rest when tired etc.
These should be adhered to in normal situations of life & health.
However, the situation of a very chronically ill person, has gone beyond normal. Their health is abnormal.
Some flexibility in this situation is called for, in order for the body to commence an accelerated reversal of pathology.
There have been no adverse effects from this approach that I have observed or read about.
I would rather have a patient healthy on compromise than suffering on principle.
Because I apparently don't know enough to leave it alone:
With my comment-in-moderation I want to add just one more thing. As a reply to Emily's typical examples of victim blaming I would like to further ask....
You have evidence for that list of 'causes' of course? And you have evidence that adding/removing those 'causes' effects mental illness? And you have evidence that the list of 'causes' are for not just say, bipolar disorder but also for schizophrenia, etc too? And you have evidence that Natural Hygiene principles have efficacy and low risk for 'treating' all of those mental illnesses?
I'd like something a little more tangible than your word for it. But I know it won't be forthcoming, so I return you to your usual episode of "Adventures in Emilyland, Queen of Contradictions". I'm sorry to say it's a rerun. We were hoping for a new episode, but something seems to have gotten lost in translation. And now... a word from our sponser...
One is conducted when the person has an acute illness- influenza, measles, pertussis, cholera, typhoid, acute tonsillitis, acute pneumonia etc, you get the drift.
Here the person is obviously quite sick- often a fever, no appetite, no energy, no libido, no humour. Easy: go a couple of days without eating ANYTHING, not even a slice of fruit.In 24-48 hours the patient is comfortable, out of pain & on the mend!
Emily, you really are full of it. People can & do DIE of most of the illnesses you mentioned in this list, when they are left untreated (& sometimes when they are, despite the best efforts of medical professionals). Your comment demonstrates a mind-boggling lack of awareness of what is actually involved in cholera, for example, & how it kills many of those it infects. I have to wonder if you'd be so blasé if you actually came down with cholera yourself.
Incidentally, you still haven't told us whether you're a creationist as well as a denier of the germ theory of disease (& just to pre-empt one possible answer, I am not using "theory" in the sense of "just an idea".)
Emily @ 411: "Since when do I blame the victim?"
Emily @ 623: "health has to be earned".
Happy to help.
Emily -
The core principle of Natural Hygiene, as you have repeatedly explained, is not to conteract the body's natural signals when unhealthy, but rather to respect, support, and obey those signals. You have objected to medical interventions that attempt to counter the body's own signals and responses specifically because these interventions violate this principle.
Specifically, you have cited this core principle when a person with a fever is given medications in an attempt to reduce the fever. By the same principle, you could not advocate inducing a fever when none is present. You have cited this principle in support of bedrest when an ill person's body is telling them to rest; by the same principle, you could not advocate being sedentary when the body calls for activity. You invoke this principle when explaining why diarrhea should not be supressed with medication, and by the same principle, you could not advocate inducing diarrhea when none is present. And, you invoke this principle when explaining why a sick child without appetite should not be given food -- and, by the same principle, you could not advocate not eating when the body is calling for nutrition.
There may well be other principles in Natural Hygiene, but you have made it crystal-clear that the central principle is not to interfere with the body's natural mechanism's for attempting to restore health, and certainly not to do the opposite of what the body is unquestionably signaling.
Now, if you do not strictly to adhere to this core principle of Natural Hygiene, but rather advocate a health-restoration system that is "flexible" in the sense that practitioners can use methods to disobey the body's signals and reactions when trying to restore health when there is evidence that such acts are beneficial, you are not a proponent of Natural Hygiene at all, as such interventions are profoundly unnatural. You are, rather, describing precisely the approach at the core of the best of modern science-based medicine.
You write,
You are clearly saying that the signals sent and symptoms exhibited by an unhealthy person's body may not be raparatory, and may not have survival value, even though the body is intelliigently designed (your characterization) and thus when it comes to restoring health, interventions that work against what the body is signaling (e.g. fever, hunger) may be efficacious.
I understand that the specific interventions and methods used to effect these correctives may be the subject of further disagreement -- fasting, prayer, medication, whatever -- but the principle remains: an unhealthy body may benefit from actions that do not comply with the signals the body is sending. With that, you cannot disagree; it represents the "flexibility" you invoke to explain why you believe that not eating despite hunger is beneficial to an unhealthy person.
What serious chronic illnesses have you had?
By allusion: I have heard woo-meisters attribute mental illness to easily remediable factors: if *only* you ate right, took supplements, exercised right, dealt with stress correctly, meditated, had the right attitude, were more *spiritual*, spoke with someone, if _only_ you *lived* right! All the while negating or de-emphasising SB data about the physiological/ biochemical basis of mental illness- which makes it *sometimes* amenable to pharmacological action.
Blaming a person for their tendency toward depression ( or another condition) is like blaming them for having blue not brown eyes: it's part of their make-up. While experiencing negative experiences as a child can make things worse and while having better coping skills or a higher level of functioning *may* help, they are not fundamental. Alt med cannot admit that physiology and psycho-pharmacology are indeed "on to something". I could list reams of research ( from a jumble of acronyms NHS, NINDS, NIMH, NARSAD, NIH, UCLA-LONI) which are illustrative: I doubt that they'd listen. Woo thrives on mis-information and mental health- which has often been a taboo subject in polite society- has attracted mindless speculation and treatment plans. - SSRIs and anti-psychotics are actively discouraged by the woo-meisters I survey... don't get me started... take a deep breath, DW.... OK, better now...
This has been bothering me all night; my comment @630 bordered on the rude and I know though somewhat warranted, angry responses are not a good idea.
Having said that, I stick to my conviction that Emily is nothing but a victim blamer and deserves to be ignored.
If it wasn't clear, and apparently my head is telling me it wasn't, that was an apology for being rude. I have more respect than Emily has it seems, and I'm willing to admit when I cross a line arbitrary as it is. Typing while hotheaded helps no one.
@flip
I have not followed this whole thread, but I want to let you know that I think both your comments at 630 and 638 are spot on, and needed to be said. Especially the conclusion of #638.
I have come to the conclusion that Emily leaves on a different planet to me, or is communicating through a time portal from the 19th century. It's a waste of energy trying to get through to her. Still, this caught my attention.
Why? The best evidence we have is that giving drugs like ibuprofen or acetaminophen make the patient feel significantly better. The idea that reducing fever prolongs the illness is an old wives' tale that is not supported by the evidence.
http://www.jfponline.com/Pages.asp?AID=8689
To refuse to give analgesic antipyretic drugs to a patient with an upper respiratory tract infection is to make them suffer unnecessarily on principle.
I mean "lives on a different planet". Obviously.
Lilady, I've got under your skin eh? Here is one of your closed- minded, vacuous attacks on Professor Peter Collignon, who is a highly esteemed & regarded Associate Professor of Infectious Diseases at Canberra Hospital, Australia.
"I read some of Peter Collignon's comments at the time of the H1N1 influenza crisis and IMO, he was on the wrong side of the issue. He wanted to proceed slowly with development of a vaccine and implementation of an immunization program. Here in the United States the vaccine was only made available to children and younger people who were considered to be the most vulnerable.
More than two years past the H1N1 Influenza pandemic, Collignon is still jabbering and still on the wrong side of the issue. Recently he has been quoted as saying that immunization again H1N1 influenza "may" impact a person's defenses against seasonal influenza viruses; based on a few very weak studies that have been published".
What a condescending empty puppet of SBM you are!
How dare you describe him as "jabbering". Saying he was/is "on the wrong side of the issue".
Did you say why? Did you furnish evidence that the sources he referred to were "weak"?
Here we have an esteemed Professor of many years standing who is a supporter of your vaccination program.
And who was proven correct. There was a complete shambles in WA when young babies reacted violently to the H1N1 jab, & it had to be 'pulled' from that age bracket.
He was proven correct- the swine flu was over-exaggerated & it cost hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money in the States & Australia through uneccessary stockpiling.
Because he did his homework, he was brave enough to criticise the handling of the swine flu by the government for rolling out an improperly tested vaccine, & was quoted in the papers as saying you have more chance of catching swine flu IF you get the H1N1 jab, you call him "jabbering". Nice science, keep it coming lady.
I suppose you spat your invective at the researchers who initially questioned the safely of HRT, which was held sacrosanct for 50 years. Now breast cancer rates have fallen in no small measure because HRT is far less prescribed.
Thank God they didn't listen to you.
Surely the intelligent & fair- minded readers of this blog can see you for what you are.
Why did the rate of measles in the USA plummet 90% between 1960 and 1970? What caused that?
Weeks ago, all-purpose healer/pseudoscientist "hygienist" Emily, was lying about what Professor Collignon stated about the H1N1 Vaccine...and she managed to derail the thread. That is until herr doktor bimler provided this:
"Ah, all is clear.
Here is Collignon's actual position on H1N1 and flu pandemics:
http://www.eht-journal.net/index.php/ehtj/rt/printerFriendly/7169/9258
Needless to say, the view that Emily ascribes to him -- "the best way of getting swine flu was to get the swine flu jab" -- exists only in her own mendacious mind.
Posted by: herr doktor bimler | January 23, 2012 3:26 PM"
Now, as she sputters around, she accuses me of invective against scientists who conducted prospective studies on HRT...I suspect that Emily is as delusional as our other trolls.
Funny isn't Emily, that 99 % of the posters on this thread agree with me that you are a citationless, ignorant, uneducated in the sciences, self-promoting "hygienist and a pathological liar.
So, on measles, one gets this:
This is incoherent. Emily begins by asserting that wild-type measles is "taken care of," proceeds to object that the vaccine bypasses this process, and then somehow arrives at the conclusion that this is "one major reason why" there are complications of measles. The only interpretation of this that I can come up with is that the measles vaccine can somehow cause complications in the unvaccinated.
Oh, and Emily, perhaps you could get down to explaining why surviving a case of measles provides lifelong immunity, particularly in light of Shelton's assertion that it is only the form that disease takes that varies, there being but one disease, and your own assertion that germs are caused by the manifestation. What prevents this form from manifesting again?
"I suppose you spat your invective at the researchers who initially questioned the safely of HRT, which was held sacrosanct for 50 years. Now breast cancer rates have fallen in no small measure because HRT is far less prescribed."
No Emily, I don't recall ever commenting on the safety of HRT on this blog or any other. Given the opportunity to comment on their excellent prospective study, I would have stated that it was a great prospective study and just proves that real science is self-correcting.
"Thank God they didn't listen to you."
See my comment above. Do you always have auditory hallucinations?
"Surely the intelligent & fair- minded readers of this blog can see you for what you are."
I depend on that, Emily.
@Emily: Many years ago, I came home from a trip from Spain. The next morning, I woke up with nausea, vomiting, anorexia (the MEDICAL term for lack of appetite, not the illness known properly as anorexia nervosa), and lethargy.
As was the norm in my family, whenever vomiting occurred, you were offered nothing by mouth for 4 hours then, if no vomiting in that time period, a 1/8 tsp of flat ginger ale was offered. If that was kept down, it was repeated in 15-20 minutes. After an hour, the amount was increased to 1/4 tsp. If any vomiting occurred, the clock was restarted on the 4 hour limit. (Ginger ale was chosen over water for the glucose - "real cane sugar" for purists - in those days). In 48 hours, I was so dehydrated from lack of fluids that I was very nearly hospitalized when I finally was able to retain fluids. Losing 15 lbs in 3 days was NOT the way I wanted to recover from a class trip, and I've never seen my parents so concerned in my life. Sounds like one of your "if they are sick, let them fast" statements. It nearly killed me.
I can't imagine "fasting" someone for longer than that, (yes, I know you say water as needed, but I couldn't keep down ANY fluid tried). Oh, and I was on almost complete bed rest - except for bathroom trips - no lights on, no TV, no books, no excitement. My mom was (still is) of the old school wherein sick people need to rest to get well, not company.
My body didn't cure me. The medications finally given to stop the vomiting and allow me to retain fluids and finally foods, did. I was lucky, and survived the illness with "only" missing a week of school, significant weight loss that took a lot of time to replace (and I was NOT an overweight young girl - I went from about 110 lbs to 92 lbs in those few days), and a lethargy that took months to recover from. One of my classmates nearly died then because they couldn't replace the fluids she was losing and she developed kidney dysfunction that killed her in her 30's (died before she could get a transplant).
Sometimes you have to be "cruel to be kind" and make someone eat when they aren't hungry, drink when they don't want to, and not trust Mother Nature to "cure us." Go to any old cemetery and see how much she cared about letting your body "cure" itself. Read any 18th or 19th century novels and see how much those people feared "common" diseases like measles, mumps, chicken pox. Even the rich and well fed feared the diseases. See how many children died from "common childhood illnesses" no matter how wealthy, well-fed (from all natural foods, too!!) and loved they were.
I'll keep the 21st century with its vaccines, modern medicines, and more adequate food, clean water, and knowledge. You can keep your "Natural Health" and hope your dice rolls all come up 7s.
Dang. Long comment, moderation. You know the routine.
Some day, my comment will come....
(Orac, why does Sciblogs hate me? I end up in Moderation more often than not lately....)
"I, & many practitioners, including medical, oppose this. Naturally inhaled measles droplet are taken care of in the mouth, the gut, the blood etc. by our self-defence systems.
This route is bypassed with vaccinations"
OK, so Emily, let's lay it out: if this is the problem, then I take it you have no problems with the FluMist vaccine, right?
Or are you going to invent a different excuse for thaat?
IIRC Offit's vaccine is (was?) administered orally. Another one that is acceptable, right?
Unless, of course, you are simply anti-vaccine and this nonsense about it "bypassing" the normal routes of ingestion is juyst an ad hoc attempt to find support for your established view.
You would have no problems with an inhaled measles vaccine?
I just came across this where Mark Twain describes his encounter with a Christian Scientist doctor, who for some reason reminds me of Emily.
@Emily:
If the measles viruses in a measles droplet are "taken care of" (killed/inactivated) within the mucus of the upper respiratory system, then the virus won't establish an infection, and there won't be any adaptive immune system response (except for a tiny amount of mucosal antibody production). However, if an infection is established, then the immune system response to the wild strain will be much the same as to the vaccine, save that the immune response to the vaccine will be a much less intense (and there won't be any mucosal antibodies produced). Within the mucosal membranes there aren't any special types of immune cells or immune processes which, if absent in the immune system response, will throw the immune system into confusion or derangement. The mucosal membranes do act as a barrier to (most) infections, but they don't weaken any pathogens that gets past them, except in the sense of reducing their numbers that get into the blood/muscles/organs. ("Most", because some pathogens (like measles) infect the mucosal membranes themselves)
As for the gut, digestion does kill a large number of pathogens that would try to get into the gut, and healthy gut flora will "crowd out" non-viral pathogens, but it won't do anything for pathogens outside of the gut, and it won't help against viral gut infections.
If it was bypassing the normal route of infection that caused the problem, then wild strain infections via droplets would cause fevers much less often than the vaccine, when in fact it's exactly the other way around. Most measles vaccinations cause an asymptotic infection, and in the great majority of the non-asymptotic cases the symptoms are less severe than a wild strain infection would be. This wouldn't be the case if bypassing the normal route of infection made things worse.
@641 Chemmomo
Thank you; however I know when I am being rude (at least, I'm not normally prone to open anger) and I'd rather set a higher bar for myself than be fodder for trolls. It's one thing to attack an idea or argument, another to attack the person. I'm sure we can all agree a high bar for respect in discussion is a good thing, even if it's not always met :)
I left the comment for a good long while but it bothered me enough that I felt I had to say something; I'm good with that.
...I love how Emily keeps proving my point for me though. Now we're back to Professors again, even though she stated she doesn't care for authority figures. Sigh... Reruns indeed.
And how every time I post a response to do with mental illness she seems to shrivel up and run away, and then make a passing swipe later on.
@646 Lilady
Totally agree. Especially the bit about 'citationless'.
@649 MI Dawn
And let's not forget the bit about 'uneducated'. Especially about history.
@652 Krebiozen
Thanks for that excerpt. I have to go find some time to read more Mark Twain stuff.
Emily:
Still waiting to hear how you'd treat a patient presenting with UTI symptoms. I contend that antibiotics resolved my infection, allowing my body to heal; I'm interested to know what you think about that, and what you would propose as a different course. You refused to answer on the basis that I hadn't answered another question which you hadn't asked yet; I've answered it extensively above and the reply is out of moderation now. So, what would you recommend for a UTI? (Hypothetically; this will not be taken as medical advice, trust me.)
Still waiting to have Emily explain why American measles incidence in 1970 was only 10% of what it was in 1960. What happened in that one decade?
Still waiting for an explanation and bragging, about exposing hundred or thousands of people, to measles, because 3? or 4? children are unimmunized.
Still waiting for an explanation and bragging, about exposing hundred or thousands of people, to measles, because 3? or 4? children are unimmunized.
I think this anecdote really does bear a bit more scrutiny. Emily's original (emphasis added):
OK, so what does one have here? First, Emily's kids all apparently got measles at the same time. It is unclear precisely what the Natural Hygiene explanation for this would be, although it is clear that it's not all being susceptible and exposed, no way, no how.
Now, there is no particular reason based on Emily's recounting to assume that she knew that the kids had measles. What is clear is that (1a) she should well know that not everyone practices Natural Hygiene, (1b) which failed in any event, and (2) she nonetheless thinks of this reckless and unpursued scenario in retrospect to exemplify "intelligent management."
I just learned of this quote from Charles Darwin:
Does this describe someone we know?
Hmmm...Emily!
@659 Chris
Sounds like a perfect fit to me.
re 658 Narad:
"Now, there is no particular reason based on Emily's recounting to assume that she knew that the kids had measles. What is clear is that (1a) she should well know that not everyone practices Natural Hygiene, (1b) which failed in any event"
I expected more from you Narad. I thought you might have had at least a cursory understanding of Natural Hygene.
Like the rest of your fellow sceptics, you haven't the slightest idea what NH is really about. But then I shouldn't be surprised. Most of the public have no idea either, either professional or layity.
It's the main reason why so many of today's children are so damn chronically sick- they are raised by sick parents who think it's normal to be that way. The whole world is becoming more chronically sick, tragically.
But wait, I know how you will solve that problem. More money to research, drugs, technology, more tests ( as is joked in my circles: 'if you think you are healthy, you just haven't had enough tests')
Natural Hygiene never purports to 'treat' 'cure' or remedy disease.
Illness, for the umpteenth time, is natural, not normal...if there are causes introduced.
Our kids had causes introduced. They were enervated. The mealses virus was an accessory AFTER the fact. Sure it was involved, but only in the particular manifestation of certain symptoms, including spots, which we label measles.
No problem, they listened to their bodies & their bodies responded, all working as designed.
No Narad, NH didn't fail. It succeeded magnificently. It's why they are so well today.
reb 657 l'lady
"Still waiting for an explanation and bragging, about exposing hundred or thousands of people, to measles, because 3? or 4? children are unimmunized."
My husband & I nearly laughed ourselves off our chairs when we read this one. We even thought we would show our 5 children this, but decided against.
Our bodies are 1 cell ours & 10 virus & bacteria.
We are outnumbered no matter what we do.
The Indians are climbing up the ladders & Davey is running out of ammo.
Better bring on the heavy artillery because Davey has just caught MRSA.
Germs cause disease like maggots cause a carcass & flies cause the garbage.
And Johnny Lunchbucket from Iceland is a good thing to beat Michael Phelps in the 100 at London.
Your medical superstition is for the gullible masses.
And btw- history is replete with examples of the majoriy being proven wrong.
And this will be one of them, but not maybe in our lifetimes.
We will have to wait for SBM to find another mistress who is as cashed up as bigpharma.
re 655 Calli Cale:
"Still waiting to hear how you'd treat a patient presenting with UTI symptoms. I contend that antibiotics resolved my infection, allowing my body to heal; I'm interested to know what you think about that, and what you would propose as a different course. You refused to answer on the basis that I hadn't answered another question which you hadn't asked yet; I've answered it extensively above and the reply is out of moderation now. So, what would you recommend for a UTI? (Hypothetically; this will not be taken as medical advice, trust me.)"
No please don't follow this advice because you might get healthier:
****Remove the causes & supply the conditions of health***
This is not a difficult one Calli honestly. I would not recommend, nor would I take, A/B's for this.
I do not know how many people I've seen recover this way, & I don't care whether you believe me or not.
I repeat:****REMOVE THE CAUSES & SUPPLY THE CONDITIONS OF HEALTH!!!***
Now I don't know how you live, Calli.I don't know how well you look after yourself. Your nutrition, your exercise, your stresses, your attitude, your drugs, your history, your medical/surgical history.These are all important. Your vitality.
If it's like most people, it's conventional. This represents a health hazard.
But if you were open to improve your health, & not just get over the UTI, I am certain that you would have recovered without drugs. Provided you don't have a medical history of serious co-morbidities & polypharmacy.That requires a different game-plan.
The emphasis from my angle is not just to overcome the bout of UTI, but to elevate health through conscious endeavour & self awareness, at which time the UTI resolves of its own accord.
No herbs, no a/b's, no chiropractic titillation (I mean manipulation), no voo or woo, no scare tactics, just plain old, boring, profitless "I feel better now, I'm so glad I made those changes" self-healing).
Now you can laugh all the way to the chemist.
Professor Peter Collignon, who is a highly esteemed & regarded Associate Professor of Infectious Diseases at Canberra Hospital, Australia.
I have a fair idea of Prof. Collignon's *actual* views, having heard his interview on NZ public radio a couple of years ago:
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2278858/f…
Emily has the unfair advantage that she does *not* know what he has said and what he has written, leaving her free to fabricate opinions for him out of thin air, as if he were no more than a ventriloquist's dummy, or a teddy bear she is using as a mouthpiece for her own opinions in a tea-party she is staging for her dollies.
[Forgive the double posting, but this is going on both threads...]
We here at Channel 59 do not apologise for the continued reruns of "Adventures in Emilyland, Queen of Contradictions". We've done some investigation and it turns out the producers only have maybe five episodes, all of which apparently containing all the plot devices they could think of on continuous loop and all without internal consistency. We hope to rectify this soon, however the producer seems intent that they have provided all that was asked for and doesn't understand what all the fuss is about. And frankly, we don't much care for criticism anyway.
We are aware most viewers have complained that the dialogue makes no sense, but we could not find a translator who understands the language used. We advise viewer discretion be applied and the purchase of an Emily-English dictionary (if one is found, please let us know as our translators would be most grateful).
We do not apologise for any inconvenience to those who:
Do not eat enough/too much
Do not eat the right foods
Do not rest enough/too much
Do not exercise enough/too much
Do not work enough/too much
Do not sleep enough/too much
Do not have enough sex/too much sex
Have used any medications which might interfere with your viewing
Have a genetic disposition to not being able to view our program
Have had an accident
Have been abused
Are stressed out
Have negative emotions
Are hostile
Have ideas of grandeur or perfectionism
Are thinking about catastrophes
Are not being kind to their neighbours
Are trying to change others
Are Big Pharma shills
Trusts the government
Are sheeple
Are not self aware
Believes in germ theory
Reads and understands references
Is familiar with biology, medicine, science, psychology, statistics, history, or literary comprehension
Are not willing to take someone's word that the program actually exists even though there's no proof that we do show it (ahem, our CEO is quite annoyed at that one)
And well, really anything else that might occur to us in the future which might prove ourselves correct and disprove our rival Channel's ideas
Those suffering from these afflictions are apparently not able to tune in to "Adventures in Emilyland, Queen of Contradictions" and are missing out on an enlightening program which could very well save your life, you poor unfortunate soul. You'll just have to think positively and/or buy a new TV and/or whatever because we here at Channel 59 don't help those who can't help themselves. We here at Channel 59 certainly find it ironic that the producer suffers from many of the above inconveniences, but it's our policy not to interfere with the natural order of things.
And now, we return to your rerun - ahem, previously scheduled "new" episode of - (booming voice)... "Adventures in Emilyland, Queen of Contradictions". Please enjoy.
Emily is still going on and on (or round and round saying nothing different). Please, do yourself a favor. Go to an acute care hospital. See who is there. Volunteer. Talk to some of the patients - you don't need to interact with the medical people. See how complicated life is. See how complicated it is to treat people with multiple co-morbidities. See that the majority of patients in the hospital are over 70 years old with major systems slowing down or failing. See how the doctors and nurses and allied health try to optimize these patients so that their final years are comfortable and they can stay in their own homes. This is what we work on. Telling me that an 85 year old woman with COPD from life-long asthma, kidney failure due to aging, diabetes again from aging, a UTI from perhaps lack of fluid intake, osteoarthritis from aging and that you think her body isn't natural or clean enough to carry on living? Let me tell you, you are going to die. Life is a sexually transmitted disease that is 100% fatal and no amount of foolishness on your part is going to change that; although it would seem that you will shuffle off this mortal coil quicker if you continue to use fasting as your main defence. I am serious - get out of your clean suburb and your mansion and go and see where the real people live. Learn something different.
Emily -
I want to make sure you read my post @637; it was in moderation for a while, so you might have overlooked it.
Your oft-repeated contention that the path to restoration of health is to comply with the body's signals is directly contradicted by your promotion of not eating when hungry. You express horror and outrage that some would take acts that run counter to the body's will, and you have repeatedly stated that those individuals "need to understand this biological truism & try to work with nature, not against her." In objection to not obeying the body's signals, you say, "I contend we have these instincts for a reason." Invokeing this principle, you directly attack interventions that oppose the body's signals: "If lowering the brain's thermostat is good science, then I'm proud to be a harsh critic." You warn against overruling the body's signals, saying, "Our bodies are intelligently designed."
This principle is at the core of Natural Hygiene, as you have articulated it, and it is the basis for your central objection to conventional medical interventions.
Yet, you promote a technique that is in direct, stark opposition to this principle, which you have invoked in nearly every post. That undermines your position utterly. Either you must reject fasting (not eating when hungry), or you must reject Natural Hygiene and acknowledge that you know that to restore health, not all the body's signals should be obeyed. You can't have it both ways, as they are in direct opposition.
Frankly, it's stunning that you, a proponent of Natural Hygiene, which rests on the principle that our bodies are intelligently designed, and that the signals our body sends are reparatory in nature and all have survival value, would discard those principles and recommend not eating despite being hungry.
What a lack of faith in the the human body's self-healing capacities. Your words.
Emily - I had my post @637 held for a while in moderation and there was a flurry of other posts that appeared before mine was approved, so you may have overlooked it. I have another in moderation now as well.
May I ask, when you were very chronically ill, what illness(es) did you suffer from?
I wondered what this miracle diet and lifestyle that prevents all chronic illness consists of. It seems that there is disagreement in the Natural Hygiene community. Shelton recommended a vegan diet, though he ate dairy. The Natural Hygiene Society does not recommend a vegan diet as:
"Died or become severely damaged doesn't sound too alluring", and doesn't quite gel with Emily's claims that adopting this diet and lifestyle will prevent or heal almost all ills. The Natural Hygiene Society also says:
I wonder about Emily's children at this point... There's some worrying further reading about veganism on the Natural Hygiene Society website here.
For example:
Sounds like an ideal Natural Hygiene diet? He got rickets.
But if you were open to improve your health, & not just get over the UTI, I am certain that you would have recovered without drugs. Provided you don't have a medical history of serious co-morbidities & polypharmacy.That requires a different game-plan.
What game plan would that be?
The emphasis from my angle is not just to overcome the bout of UTI, but to elevate health through conscious endeavour & self awareness, at which time the UTI resolves of its own accord.
Now you can laugh all the way to the chemist.
Anyone with a UTI is probably in too much pain to laugh. But it's nice to know that eventually, if she cultivates correct living and the right mind-set, that infection will go away.
Unless of course it deteriorates into something worse. But that would be Calliâs fault and not yours, wouldnât it?
Emily:
I do not know how many people I've seen recover this way, & I don't care whether you believe me or not.
That doesn't exactly inspire a great deal of confidence that your advice would be safe to follow. Don't you see why?
I repeat:****REMOVE THE CAUSES & SUPPLY THE CONDITIONS OF HEALTH!!!***
Yes, you've been saying that for quite a while for basically every condition, but it's pretty vague. I mean, that's exactly what I did, only I did it like this:
* Remove the cause of disease -- take antibiotics to kill the E. coli inhabiting the urinary tract.
* Supply the conditions of health -- eat a balanced diet, get plenty of fluids, get plenty of rest, exercise regularly, follow proper bathroom hygiene. I do all that anyway, so that part wasn't difficult.
Now, you go on to state "no a/b's" so I presume you would not be in favor of how I removed the cause of my disease. I'd be interested to hear what you'd suggest otherwise. You've said a lot of what you would *not* recommend; that doesn't really help me tell how you think I should have removed the cause of my disease. What do you think the cause of my disease was?
But if you were open to improve your health, & not just get over the UTI, I am certain that you would have recovered without drugs. Provided you don't have a medical history of serious co-morbidities & polypharmacy.That requires a different game-plan.
How are you certain I would have recovered without drugs? I've tried "toughing out" UTIs before. They never resolved on their own. They just got progressively worse. So my anecdotal experience doesn't support your assertion. Neither does the science. What do you offer instead to help me make up my mind? "Trust me?"
Incidentally, I do favor avoiding medications wherever possible. For UTIs, however, my opinion is that the best way to do this is to avoid getting the infection in the first place. There are behaviors that can reduce the chances, though for ladies, there's only so much that can be done. The urethra is awfully short.
What's with the trolls "odd" medical abbreviation lexicon i.e.
A/B = antibiotics? Are we supposed to be impressed with this particular oddity?
@ Calli Arcale: You, of course, used the correct medicine to treat a UTI. People who avoid antibiotics or worse yet, take the advice of "hygienists" who don't ascribe to the "germ theory", end up with an ascending kidney infection.
That's right, lilady. I've had UTIs before, so while I have just the one test subject, I have run a lot of trials against it. ;-) I have a diverticulum in my bladder. I was born with it. I've had tests run, and while its existence has been confirmed, it's not worth surgically repairing it, and mere hygiene* has been sufficient to keep the number of UTIs down to a manageable level. It means I'm well acquainted with the symptoms; I don't see a doctor until I get at least three UTI symptoms, in order to distinguish from the hormone-related symptoms that many women get during certain parts of their cycle and which are commonly confused for UTIs. (These resolve naturally without any intervention, mostly because there was never an infection in the first place.)
But despite being well-acquainted with the symptoms, I still manage to miss them sometimes. This one really snuck up on me. I had some ambiguous symptoms off and on, but they went away. Then, a little over a week ago, the lethargy really hit hard. As it turns out, I *did* have ascending infection, and my right kidney was now involved. I didn't know that yet; all I knew was that I was amazingly tired. I slept for hours. The sleep was refreshing, but within an hour or so, I'd be exhausted again. By Monday evening, I had three symptoms (lethargy, burning urination, urgency, plus a low-grade fever off and on), and I made an appointment for the following day to get a urinalysis done. By the time of the appointment, I also had foul-smelling cloudy urine and lower abdominal pain as well, and on physical examination, the doctor discovered that my right flank was tender. (I hadn't noticed it yet; it only hurt when she tapped the kidney.) So, 10 days of amoxycillin. I started the course immediately. I was still pretty tired that evening, but Wednesday morning I woke up more rested and refreshed than I'd felt in about two weeks! I was amazed. I think I'd actually been cooking that infection for quite a while. (I've had asymptomatic UTIs before. Once I had this lethargy and intermittent low-grade fever that went on for about a month before, on a whim, my doctor ordered a UA. Lo and behold, there was the problem. The symptoms resolved as soon as I went on antibiotics.)
Of course, now I'm waiting for the inevitable yeast infection and diarrhea. I don't terribly enjoy being on antibiotics, given the potential side effects, but it beats the alternative, which for me would eventually be a dialysis machine.
* Using the conventional definition of "hygiene".
Why did all of them have the same symptoms?
Since Natural Hygiene doesn't "'treat' 'cure' or remedy disease," it would appear that the only thing open for it to have "succeeded" in was maintaining the conditions of health that would have made the measles unnecessary, which didn't happen. What it sounds like from your story, though, is that you succeeded in taking them home while at their most contagious, I infer on a plane, and exposing unwitting people. That you have claimed to hold the notion that the virus would only play "an associative role" in measles is irrelevant, because you were supplying it all the same in full knowledge that the people around you probably did not have the protective benefit of Hygiene, even if you may not have known at the time that it was in fact measles, and you are failing to own up to this, instead presenting this sorry anecdote as some sort of triumph.
In order to avoid having portrayed yourself as a proud menace to public health, your only option is to entirely deny that measles virus has any role in producing measles, which would make all the previous song and dance about microorganisms not being "THE cause" nothing but evasiveness.
re 673 'lady
"@ Calli Arcale: You, of course, used the correct medicine to treat a UTI. People who avoid antibiotics or worse yet, take the advice of "hygienists" who don't ascribe to the "germ theory", end up with an ascending kidney infection".
Calli, all I will say is, wherever you live, investigate this line of inquiry I'm promulgating further, do some reading OUTSIDE standard medical texts, get on to Dr Joel Fuhrman's website www.drfuhrman.com or contact the 'real' & 'unreal' doctors at True North Health Centre www.healthpromoting.com, & make your own mind up when you learn more.
Speak to people who have recovered from UTI's without drugs.
In my experience, women with UTI's who resort to A/B's, invite recurrent infections. These are the ladies I see who have had repeated doses of double strength A/B's over time, & are driven crazy by the condition.
Why does it recur?
Causes are not removed & the proper conditions of health supplied PLUS the cumulative impact over time of the A/B's in suppressing the immune system & encouraging drug-resistant micr-organisms.
Then, I can promise you, you will be able to see how little this lady knows about health & disease.
Where is knowledge of this "cumulative impact" stored? (Indeed, is there or is there not a critical density of "nerve energy"? Or is there a cosmic passbook account somewhere that one is drawing on?) How does amoxicillin suppress the immune system?
re 672 Calli Arcale:
I hadn't read your 674 post before I sent my above response.
Having read it, I feel you will be in for a hard landing with your health if you keep following this route you've been taking.
You state you removed the causes of your infection.
Sorry, but you didn't, that's why they recur.
You removed the bacteria! They are not "gate- crashers".
I'm sorry to say, you didn't remove the real causes. And while these underlying "invitations" remain, you will suffer.
You mentioned you eat a balancd diet & exercise.
You need to reach beyond these "lip-service" recommendations.
If you are interested I am prepared to go into more detail, but I would need to have more detail about your habits.
It is in the "fine- tuning" of these that exceptional health is achieved.
And this means NEVER having a UTI again!!!!
re 670 Kreb:
You're correct in raising the issues over veganism.
I do not recommend total veganism. Even Dr Neal Barnard, Predident of the PCRM, himself a vegan, must, he feels, supplement his diet with B12.
I don't see the sense in that.
The four longest living cultures in the world today all eat abstemious quantities of animal protein. Their diets are mostly plant-based however.
There is still much to learn about nutrition. This is particularly true with issues like B12.
Having read hundreds of books on nutrition & having taught it at Uni, I will say the best book I have read to date would be Dr Joel Fuhrman's Eat to Live.
And no, I have no vested interest or financial arrangement with him!
re 669 William of OccamsLaser:
"May I ask, when you were very chronically ill, what illness(es) did you suffer from?"
The only chronic issue I've had to continually wrestle with has been food sensitivities.
I also experienced a 3 year 'torture' of CFS about 20 years ago.
By listening & responding to these challenges, I have been able to stay healthy & energetic, & supplement & drug-free.
I have to work hard at my health, it's a daily thing. We have taught our children that & I will be sharing this priceless wisdom with the world in a book this year, although I know the abuse I will get from people like your good selves.
having taught it at Uni,
When, at what institution, & what are your qualifications for doing so? I doubt it would have been in a science faculty as denial of germ theory doesn't come across too well in the selection process.
Having read hundreds of books on nutrition & having taught it at Uni, I will say the best book I have read to date would be Dr Joel Fuhrman's Eat to Live.
Let's take a look at the introduction (emphasis added).
A ~3500 calorie deficit per day is yet another entry in the Annals of Not a Bright Idea, Emily.
@ alison: The troll keeps touting a "wellness center" in Northern California, where the doctors stress an all-vegan diet and fasting. Troll probably works there and is shilling for them. Now, how did I know that if she taught anyone ever, it was in a health spa?
I checked out Troll's "research" references from the "wellness center"; Doug Lisle is a psychologist and Alan Goldhamer is a chiropractor. Their "research papers" consist of small articles especially written for their marks who "detoxify" at the "wellness center". Just the perfect professionals to monitor your health, prescribe diets and prescribe fasting.
-Still waiting for troll's:
Education
University-conferred degree
Professional licensing in any health care field
Teaching experience ("spa teacher", "sunday school teacher" do not count)
Work experience in a health care setting
Emily,
It seems you have to get this Natural Hygiene diet just right to avoid death or severe damage. It seems a bit hit and miss to me, especially as no one seems to keep adequate records. I think I'll stick with SBM, as imperfect as it might be.
Which might these longest living cultures be? I ask because every long-lived culture I have investigated turns out not to be particularly long-lived at all. There seems to be a curious correlation between high life expectancy and poorly kept birth records.
According to the CIA yearbook the four countries with the highest life expectancy are Monaco, Macau, San Marino and Andorra. I suspect the high life expectancy is related to their wealth and access to good medical care.
Maybe, but I suspect there is more nonsense written about nutrition than there is to learn. As Michael Pollan wrote, "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants." Is there that much else to learn?
If you have read hundreds of books on nutrition, you must have noticed that there are literally hundreds of different diets with fanatical supporters, all of whom claim that their diet and no other will bring you eternal health. They can't all be right!
Dr. Joel "Now offering free shipping on all products!" Fuhrman? I'm with Dr. Peter Lipson when he writes, "Yet another Promiser of Big Promises is telling us why weâre sick and what to do about it, without the benefit of actual truth or science."
I've got a comment stuck in moderation...about Goldhamer and Lisle and their "wellness center". The troll should find it "enlightening".
@663 Emily
Well that's convinced me. This is just a troll. Either that or a seriously deluded lady who not only can't read/write but count either. Doing it once, ok, maybe a typo. Doing it twice and with a different number? Making shit up as she goes along.
@667 Emily
FIFY
@678 Emily
"Uni" is a common term not often used by Americans, but a common one amongst Australians and Brits. I wonder if Emily is closer to home than I think.... Brrr, there's a scary thought.
@679 Emily
Yeah, because we all plan our lives around your book publishing date. I've published books before - actually I still do. Are you using a POD publisher? It wouldn't surprise me if it was only available on Lulu.
This talk of publishing a book is amusing. In the world of woo, it seems simply filling out a large quantity of pages and getting someone to buy them is treated as a sign of being an Authority.
I'd rather skip the book and look for scientific articles in the bibliography. Science articles typically describe how they eliminated experimenter biases and confounding factors, as well as their methods of objective measurement. The authority is in the procedural rigor involved in gathering and analyzing the evidence.
If the book's only going to be a collection of anecdotes and speculation based on those anecdotes, I've got plenty of reason to skip it. Anecdotes are not reliable because they do nothing to counteract human biases and perceptual failings. I cannot simply ignore the humanity of a writer.
Yah, she does this, but not very consistently. For example, she usually drops the period in "Dr.," but not always (m.m. "etc"/"etc."). She's been consistent in this comment thread at least in "sceptic," but one also does get "criticizing." The use of single versus double quotes is all over the map. "Favor" and "favour" both occur. I'm disinclined to go back over all of it with my editor's hat on, though. My guess was American expat, but I wouldn't entirely rule out simple affectation either.
@Emily:
How do antibiotics in general suppress the immune system, much less in a cumulative way? If you consider the gut flora to be a part of the immune system (by the healthy flora crowding out the unhealthy), then oral antibiotics could be considered to be suppress it, but the gut flora balance isn't something that's cumulatively altered by multiple courses of oral antibiotics. There are other portions of the immune system which might be damaged by antibiotics, but what is the mechanism?
Also, could you address my #653 comment, about how despite the fact that the measles vaccine bypasses the normal route of infection, it almost always causes less severe symptoms than infection by the wild strain virus, and usually causes no symptoms at all?
@686 Narad
Considering her inability to comprehend English properly anyway, and the amount of Americanisation of Aussie/NZ English (thanks Microsoft and the internet!) I wouldn't consider minor spelling differences to count for or against. Idioms on the other hand...
Oh, you know there are some people who traipse around the English-speaking world, living with relatives, studying theoretical social sciences, marrying people and then abandoning them in various locales... but no, she doesn't sound like she comes from that echelon of society. More like a marriage and/ or move once- possibly education is more liberal studies then alternative courses... but something's amiss about the entire scenario- doesn't sit right with me. Maybe she's Meryl Dorey?
Emily:
I don't know; I'd like to see something a little more reliable than somebody's self-promotional website. Don't you have any evidence? Studies?
I spoke to a woman once who believed she had recovered from recurrent UTIs without drugs. Thing is, she never had any unambiguous evidence that she actually had UTIs. No urinalysis. It didn't seem polite to probe on symptoms, but what she did describe was entirely consistent with the normal hormonal fluctuations many women (including myself) get which can resemble UTIs. (That's why I make it a rule I don't bother seeing the doctor until I have at least three symptoms. Two and it may not really be a UTI. And even then, I don't do antibiotics without a positive UA.)
So that's the problem in going with personal experience. I don't know if these women really have recovered with neither antibiotics nor long-term morbidity.
"Double strength" is an odd turn of phrase. Antibiotics come in many different dosages, and can be given on many different schedules to achieve the desired blood concentration. (Well, in this case it's really the urine concentration we're interested in.) Women who get UTIs more than a few times should probably be worked up to find out why they're having so much trouble. It's not normal to have up to 3 a year, as I do. I've had a voiding cystourethrogram done. It's not a terribly pleasant procedure, but not terribly bad either. A bit awkward, because it involves a catheter and voiding in front of people, but it can detect anatomical issues that make it difficult to fully empty the bladder, which in turn creates an environment friendly to bacteria.
Drug-resistant microorganisms are a serious problem, and it's one that has been on my mind a lot. My doctors rotate antibiotics for that reason. But I'm not sure why you're concerned about that if you don't think they're the cause.
If the cause is not bacteria growing where they are not meant to be, what do you think is the cause? Feel free to speak hypothetically, rather than speculating about me personally; I would be putting you in an awkward spot in that case. (Though I would be happy to give you more information if you wish to suggest possible causes for my recurrent UTIs.)
Calli to Emily: My doctors rotate antibiotics for that reason. But I'm not sure why you're concerned about that if you don't think they're the cause.
And there you have nailed it, Calli :-) Why would someone who denies that 'germs' cause disease be worried about the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria?
Another example of the inconsistencies in Emily's world-view.
Denise Walter: Maybe she's Meryl Dorey?
Dunno - there are sufficient porkies in the story, but is our E sufficiently rabid in her anti-vax attitudes?
680 Alison:
"When, at what institution, & what are your qualifications for doing so? I doubt it would have been in a science faculty as denial of germ theory doesn't come across too well in the selection process".
This is exactly why we keep our anonymity.
Tolerance will never become a subject in the University I attended.
My comment about the troll...and she is a troll...got lost somehow.
I said it before, If this troll ever taught anyone it was at a "spa" or a "wellness center". Now the "wellness center" she keeps touting has a "Research & Education" webpage. All the articles are written specifically for their customers, are not researched and never were published in any science journal.
All the articles about diet and fasting are written by Doug Lisle and Alan Goldhamer. Lisle is a psychologist and Goldhamer is a chiropractor. These are the "researchers" that Emily is shilling for, these are the doctors who are putting people on diets and fasts and monitoring their health.
This is the same troll who talks about "counseling" people with cancer, genetic disorders, acute appendicitis, obstructed biliary trees and psychiatric problems. She actually has claimed "cures".
This is the same troll who cannot figure out how many children she has, refuses to discuss her educational background, her field of study/degree, her teaching "credentials", her professional license and employment in the health care field.
This is a major troll, an ignorant and clueless disease promoter. Just another bullshitting, nasty, delusional troll.
re 681 Narad:
"A ~3500 calorie deficit per day is yet another entry in the Annals of Not a Bright Idea, Emily."
Never draw a conclusion on an experiment never done!
Read the book!
This is exactly why we keep our anonymity.
In other words, you lack the courage of your convictions.
@Calli Arcale:
As far as I can tell, Emily's view is that deviation from optimal health leads to vulnerability to infection, which makes whatever lead to the deviation from optimal health the cause of the infection, while making the microorganism a mere "accessory". Which means that while optimal health should always be maintained so as prevent infections in the first place, if an infection does happen, and things get bad enough that death or permanent negative effects will happen without the application of antibiotics, then it would be bad if the infection is resistant to antibiotics.
@692 Emily
Why do I get the feeling that once her identity is revealed we'll all go "aah", nodding our heads in realisation that she truly is a duck? That is, she's a well-known figurehead for CAM and is trying to hide it, hence the constant confusion on personal details...
"Read the book!"
Who could ever forget the latex-fixated-causing-autism author of a self-published book...and the never ending "Read MY book" posts.
@lilady: please don't even hint at him. I fear that, like the Candyman, if we invoke him, he will appear.
re Calli Arcale @ 692:
Obviously you have suffered & are suffering still, & I feel for you.
If you continue down the path you are on, your suffering will more than likely continue, & most likely worsten, involving other areas of your health. You will develop co-morbidities.
The problem, I repeat, is because the TRUE causes have never been removed.
This is largely, not entirely, because you have followed the very poor advice of people like lilady, who honestly would not have a damn clue about truely helping you, apart from:
" you're doing the right thing Calli. Go & get more investigations & take more drugs. Otherwise the evil bugs will ascend into the kidneys, throw a freakin' party & invite others & then you could get kidney failure. OMG Calli, you could end up on dialysis if you don't take my advice".
Well you know what Calli?
You have been following her advice & where has it got you?
A one way tiket to the sufferfest chamber at The Holy Church of Modern Medicine!!!! With High Priestess Lilady leading the carnage!
And what is her/their answer?
More of the same.
Are the Priests & Priestesses of the Church familiar with the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over & over again, & expecting a different result!
For your own sake Calli, draw a line in the sand. Enough is enough.
If you really want to elevate your health to a magnificent level in 2012, just respond via this thread. And no-one will know you, so anonymity remains.
In fact here's a non RCT, of dubious scientific merit, but possibly with a life-changing outcome for one Calli.
I will pit my advice against hers for all to see.
You will know which way is more efficacious & we will all know if lilady is right & I am, as she asserts, the moronic mother of disease vectors, totally ignorant & full of "bullshit.
Lilady seems to know what you need, which is more of the same.
Go ahead, follow her advice.
When, not if, you hit the wall again, I am willing to simply state my simple program in detail for you.
What do I get out of it?
Nothing except I've helped a fellow being relieve some long-standing suffering AND I will then get some, not all, of the devotees on this blog to see through the errant claptrap of misguided fanatics like our High Lilady of the Modern Church of Modern Medicine.
It will cost you nothing. No woo powders, no poo chowders, no organics, no orgasmics, no detox crystals.
The ball is in your court Calli.
Emily:
I appreciate your sympathy. But don't feel bad; I'm actually feeling pretty good right now.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you mean that the infection is real, the bacteria are really causing a problem, but there is an underlying issue making it easier for the bacteria to gain a foothold, yes?
Actually, I do have an underlying cause: I have a diverticulum in my bladder that causes urine retention. Given that one of the major ways to avoid a UTI is to ensure complete emptying of the bladder and do so on a regular basis (which is where proper hydration comes into play), you can see where this is a problem. The only way to remove this cause is major surgery, and I am not willing to go that route at this point. It's not worth it -- although success rates for the surgery are very good, the risk factors are pretty substantial, and the recovery is horrid.
But I'm not clear on how removing that cause, or any other, would treat an existing infection. At best, all you could do is prevent additional UTIs. I'm all in favor of prevention, but just as a condom doesn't stop a pregnant woman from having a baby, correcting hygeinic and anatomical issues doesn't stop an infection. What do you do about the infection that has already started?
Heh. I have never consulted lilady for advice, nor would I. When I have an urgent medical problem, I make an appointment with a clinic. I don't go asking random people on the Internet to diagnose a suspected bacterial infection. You and I, right now, we're speaking hypothetically for the purposes of discussion. That's different; you won't be accountable if you're wrong.
I'd be willing to try it if I was given some sort of indication of a) what exactly it is and b) why I should put my health in your hands. I want to know (and please, folks, let Emily answer; I think most of us know what the conventional answers will be):
1) We are in agreement that a UTI is a bacterial infection; however, we both acknowledge that there are things which can make it possible for that bacterial infection to become established. What sorts of things are risk factors for UTIs?
2) Does removing these risk factors help with an established infection?
3) What is the prognosis for a person with a UTI?
4) How do you tell if a person has a UTI?
and lastly
5) What details would you want to know to guide your advice to a person with a suspected UTI?
Counselling, Research and Education-
As my sister high priestess** notes, we hear these words frequently- actually, they're the cargo cult triumvirate. *Counselling* really gets me because I counsel people- it sounds really legit, doesn't it?. OK, here's the difference if my profs or the several institutions where I studied/ trained heard what I was doing in detail I doubt that they would cast me off and disavow their connections to me.
I believe that there is a flock of counsellors, life coaches, healers, nutritionists, therapists who flit like errant butterflies on the margins of medical/ psychological territory, who are guided by the profit motive and fluctuate in their CVs as to their education and area of expertise- as fashions changes, so do they. They populate health and vitamin shops, yoga and exercise studios and alt med doctors' offices, as well as websites and radio airwaves. Of course we know the big names, but I infer an army of lower order followers brandishing their certificates and diplomas in arcane sciences like reiki, energy healing, nutrition, homeopathy, herbalism, avuyveda and TCM from schools exclusively based in whimsy. Loads of these schools.
There is a vast underground that supplies advice for profit, often alongside legitimate therapies like massage: an army of Emilys.
** or is it vestal virgins of the hearth of SBM?
Although I have a post in moderation ( High Church SBM vs Cargo Cult)- I'd like to note something: amongst those I survey, it's common to assert superior knowledge that trumps SBM data accumulated over years- you can read it at the usually suspect websites we all know and love.
Why do people agree and follow their advice? Probably because they already have an axe to grind against SBM and they've been simmering in this stew for quite a while.
Oh, and about the "definition of insanity"- first of all,*insanity* is a legal term and secondly, the quote is basically folklore, not anything on which to base your judgments about people's abilities or the lack thereof. It's usually atributed to Einstein ( I guess you get extra cargo cult points for that).
SBM and SB Psychology generally consider people who are unable to differentiate internal and external reality SMI, this is usually accompanied by symptoms related to the specific type of illness- and may include inability to veridically judge their own or others' capacities, have grandiose self-regard, assert beliefs that are not founded in demonstrable external reality, et al. Professionals don't diagnose people over the internet.
Since the "insanity" reference was pertaining to my use of antibiotics to treat recurrent UTIs, I'll make a comment here.
The full phrase is "the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result." That's not an accurate description of my use of antibiotics. I do not expect antibiotics taken for, say, 5 days to prevent me getting another UTI a year later. I would consider that an unreasonable expectation. I only expect them to halt the current UTI. I am not expecting a cure of all future UTIs, therefore it doesn't even satisfy the adage.
I feel the need to point out an obvious problem with the folklore definition as well: It depends on conditions. Medicine is complicated because the human body is subject to a lot of variables, many of which are pretty well hidden. The human body is more complex than a toggle switch. That's why the same action doesn't necessarily lead to the same result with each attempt.
That's why medical research is a messy business full of confounding factors. That's why we want large numbers of subjects for tests and why we need control groups whenever ethically possible. That's how researchers reduce the likely set of explanations. Without such measures, there's no way to be confident that an improvement is the result of the treatment in question instead of confounding factors or dumb luck.
The scientific method will never result in 100% certainty, but I'll take 99.99% confidence over magical thinking and anecdotalism. If anyone wants to convince me NH works, they'd better have primary research to back it up.
Emily -
There can be a carcass with no maggots, correct?
There can be garbage with no flies, correct?
re 709 occamslaser:
Emily says:"Maggots don't cause the carcass & flies don't cause the garbage & germs don't cause the disease, they FOLLOW it".
O/L says: "There can be a carcass with no maggots, correct?
There can be garbage with no flies, correct?"
Of course.
And there can be germs with no disease, too.
And influenza without the virus, & they call that influenza-like illness!
Anything to save face.
Let's cut to the slo-mo:
Remember, germs are everywhere except when they offer explanatory power, in which case they spring aetherial from disease.
Don, don't we have a reel on this in the archive? Great, cue it up.
re 703 calli arcale:
"Heh. I have never consulted lilady for advice, nor would I. When I have an urgent medical problem, I make an appointment with a clinic. I don't go asking random people on the Internet to diagnose a suspected bacterial infection".
I never said you consulted anybody. I said you followed her advice, which is taking antibiotics:
"@ Calli Arcale: You, of course, used the correct medicine to treat a UTI. People who avoid antibiotics or worse yet, take the advice of "hygienists" who don't ascribe to the "germ theory", end up with an ascending kidney infection".
You know Calli, there are 2 types of people, broadly speaking, when talking health-care:
There are those who follow whatever advice they are given by their health-care professional.
For example, there are those who get chiropractic cervical manipulations every month BECAUSE they were advised to do so, by their chiropractor. Even when they have no neck problem.
Or they take their garlic & horsefadish (I mean radish) every day because their herbalist said it was a prophylactic for colds & flu.
Or there are those who take antibiotics every time someone whispers 'infection'. They religiously follow 'doctor's orders'.
The second type REALLY thinks for themselves. They let truth be their authority, not authority be their truth.
They will be open-minded without being gullible. They seek to find their own 'cause & effect'in their lives, particularly regarding their own health.
They know that science today can become frogshit tomorrow, & conversely, frogshit today, can become science tomorrow.
They understand that behaviours are important, but paradigms are more so. That is why they NEVER dismiss someone who approaches something from a different paradigm, without PROPER investigation.
They know Shakespeare was right when he said there were more things in heaven & earth, than in your philosophy, Horatio.
This group knows that THEY are the world authority on themselves! They take lessons from adversity & make changes & see illness as lessons.
They have a deep & abiding wisdom about their health, & life for that matter, which is governed both by common sense & common science. They don't discount intuition, 'feel' or 'gut instinct.'
The move from the first group to the second can be slow or fast, or never. I know plenty from all three.
In health, they understand the word self-responsibility much better than the first group.
In same, they have a greater self-awareness than the first group.
They generally lead healthier lives than the first group.
I hope this helps.
Yawn.... wake me when there's evidence posted.
@flip et. al,
Emily is just about as bad, if not worse than resident insane troll. There is no reason to continue to debate someone who has such a fundamental wrong view of reality.
Emily:
There's an expression that might help here. "There are two types of people: those who divide the world into two groups of people and those who don't." It's self-referential humor, but there is truth to it. Why does it have to be a dichotomy? I do not fit in either of the groups you suggested. I suspect most people do not.
I tend to regard routine chiropractic manipulation as a scourge upon the landscape, so I think we're in violent agreement that this is not a good idea. But yes, chiropractors will successfully frighten patients into doing it. And some patients will seek it out because they "did their own research" and "sought the truth" on the Internet and found websites telling them that this is necessary.
A good family friend is like this. She actually went to Mexico to buy bulk penicillin because her doctor wouldn't prescribe it to her for every little thing.
I'm not like this, though. I do follow doctor's orders, but going to a doctor is not (or shouldn't be) a one-way process. You consult the doctor to mutually determine a path forward. That's how I approach it, anyway, and clearly how the doctors I usually see tend to approach it.
And I will not take antibiotics without a clear indication for them. Viral infections do not warrant antibiotics, and many things that *look* like infections aren't really. UTIs are a great example, because there are many benign, self-limiting conditions which can produce some of the same symptoms. A urinalysis can rule those out.
I'll tell you how it worked out for this infection.
First, after waiting long enough to get enough symptoms to have a reasonable suspicion, I made an appointment. Tuesday, I went in and provided a clean catch urine sample. (Clean catch is important, because you don't want to get bacteria from outside the body into the sample and confuse matters.) A urinalysis was performed, and tested positive for leukocyte esterase. Leukocytes are, of course, white blood cells, and the esterase is a marker for their presence that a dipstick test can look for. They are not normally present in urine; their presence indicates that the body is fighting back against an infection of some kind.
With that positive, the lab technician moved to the next test: reflex microscopic examination of the specimen. No red blood cells were observed, which is a good thing; that would tend to indicate advanced nephritis, allowing blood to leak straight through into the kidneys. Actual white blood cells were observed, however, as were actual bacteria and epithelial cells (indicating sloughing off of material inside the urinary tract, which is also not normal).
That, combined with the finding on clinical examination that my right kidney was tender, was enough for the doctor to prescribe antibiotics; you do not want to let a kidney infection go. Kidneys are way too important to mess around with. But wanting to have absolute confirmation and verify the choice of antibiotic, she also sent the specimen off for culture. That came back on Feb 2, and was positive. The organism is E. coli, as suspected (it's the most common cause of UTIs, for fairly straightforward anatomical reasons), and is sensitive to amoxicillin.
So, this isn't a case of taking antibiotics at the first whisper of the word "infection". I know people who do that, and I think they're crazy. It may be hard for you to accept, but I actually am doing my homework and thinking for myself here.
Yet, all you use to describe this type is platitudes.
Hamlet was talking about the ghost of his father, of course. It's a lovely quote, though. Not my favorite from the play, but in the top ten. My favorite shifts from time to time, but lately I've really been liking this one, mostly because of how beautifully it was delivered in the recent RSC production featuring David Tennant and Patrick Stewart. (Geek girl heaven!)
"Use every man after his desert, and who should scape whipping? Use them after your own honour and dignity: the less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty."
And you call this "open minded"? People who see themselves as the ultimate experts, and who feel that they do not need to learn from anyone else?
I don't discount intuition, feel, or gut instinct. I also don't put them on a pedestal; they have their own limitations. I've been absolutely convinced I had a bladder infection, only to have the tests come back negative. No antibiotics for me on those occasions! And on those occasions, when there was no infection, it resolved on its own. If I trusted my gut, I'd have taken more antibiotics than I needed.
"Self-responsibility" is a neologism, and it's unnecessary. I'm an English major; pointless neologisms bug me. There's a perfectly good language there for people to use. I'm not so sure that the people in your second group understand taking responsibility for themselves any better than your first group. They just have different ideas of how one goes about taking care of oneself. And they're actually both wrong. The first group refuses to believe themselves; the second group refuses to believe anyone but themselves. Both are willfully blinding themselves to a great deal.
Since you didn't answer any of the questions, not really. For convenience, I'll repeat them here:
1) We are in agreement that a UTI is a bacterial infection; however, we both acknowledge that there are things which can make it possible for that bacterial infection to become established. What sorts of things are risk factors for UTIs?
2) Does removing these risk factors help with an established infection?
3) What is the prognosis for a person with a UTI, untreated?
4) How do you tell if a person has a UTI?
and lastly
5) What details would you want to know to guide your advice to a person with a suspected UTI? I am willing to answer questions here, publicly.
Emily,
I have a comment in moderation. I'm afraid your answer didn't really help, because it didn't answer any of my questions. I'm willing to answer any of your questions about my health, right here, if you are willing to also do this publicly. My last question in the previous post was asking what details you'd need to help you give advice; I'm fully intending to reply extensively. If it turns out there's something I'm not comfortable with the world knowing, I'll let you know, but I don't anticipate it; I have a high tolerance for "ick factor". ;-)
Calli Arcale
But it is an accurate description of your attempts to reason with Emily. *ducks and runs*
re: those who REALLY think for themselves.
Oddly, I seem to be hearing this REALLY frequently from those who have a bone to pick with SBM: alt med advocates ( and by that, I mean any system that's *not* SBM). Proselytisers appeal to their audience's self-images as free-thinkers, while condemning followers of SBM as being in a cult, a church or a dictatorship ( see Mike Adams' myriad jabs @ NaturalNews). Interestingly, I own a 1960 compilation of ( 1950s) articles from *Prevention* magazine by J.I. Rodale wherein he makes very similar evaluations.
A few who tell their adoring followers to "think for themselves" often prescribe intricately articulated daily plans for living, eating ( or not eating) and thinking: it's no accident that if you survey woo-tastic websites ( like NN or the Progressive Radio Network, Mercola) you'll find political and economic woo to match the medico-psychological woo. In addition, when they invoke free thought, inviting audiences to check out the literature, there are strict *proscriptions*- e.g. if it is funded by the government or the work of a governmental agency, funded even indirectly by pharma, by those who work in a university funded in any way by the aforementioned- it's *Verboten*- they'll call it biased and compromised. Whereas if some dude they know who does mega-vite therapy for cancer in his 100 sq ft "lab"- it's OK, he's *independent*.
-btw- there's much more to this but I have appointments.
@ Militant Agnostic:
I can't speak for others but a full 85%** of my wriiting is primarily addressed to lurkers.
** yes, I've kept track.
MA - I'm not really arguing to try to convince her. She is quite passionate about what she believes, so I think that would be futile. I more want to understand what it is she's promoting.
Denice Walter
Yeah, I know. but I couldn't resist the setup. In this case we are dealing with the Energizer Bunny of Bullshit. I think Emily could provide enough manure to convert all of North America to organic farming.
Hahahahaha!
What a crock.
I'll believe that crapola about science & frog droppings (I'm not using the original term since, oddly enough, cussin' makes posts go into moderation) when the luminiferous aether, spontaneous generation and phlogiston come back into mainstream scientific circulation.
Calli Acale
Good luck with that;)
@719 Calli
I'll have to agree with Militant Agnostic - I was trying to understand cause I've never heard of Natural Hygiene before. I still don't understand it, nor Emily. Good luck, you'll need it!
Yeah, you had your turn, flip. Now it's mine. ;-) I would think a UTI would be more straightforward than chronic depression, so it should be illustrative.
With apologies to the Bard...
Friends, Minions, Shills, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Science Based Medicine, not to praise it.
The evil that Science Based Medicine does lives after it;
The good is oft forgotten long before the bones of those it benefited can be interred;
So let it be with Science Based Medicine. The noble Emily
Hath told you Science Based Medicine was Seriously Bad Medicine:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Science Based Medicine answer'd it.
Here, under leave of Emily and the rest--
For Emily is an honourable Monitor of Natural Hygiene;
So are they all, all honourable Monitors of Natural Hygiene--
Come I to speak in Science Based Medicine's funeral.
Science has been my guide, its discoveries tested and verified by many (and a few by me):
But Emily says Science Based Medicine was Seriously Bad Medicine;
And Emily is an honourable Monitor of Natural Hygiene.
My grandfather was confined to his bed for a year.
Science Based Medicine freed him from that bed
So he could work and buy a boat and take me fishing
And bring home many fish to clean and cook and my general stomach fill:
Did this in Science Based Medicine seem Seriously Bad?
When that the sick have suffered, Science Based Medicine hath wept
And searched for better cures to heal their ills and halt their suffering:
Seriously Bad Medicine should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Emily says Science Based Medicine was Seriously Bad Medicine;
And Emily is an honourable Monitor of Natural Hygiene.
You may have read that I have Caesarâs illness, the falling disease
I have thrice suffered seizures and thrice been unable to drive for a year,
But three times Science Based Medicine has allowed me to drive again
And work and raise my children and enjoy life: was this Seriously Bad?
Yet Emily says it was Seriously Bad Medicine;
And, sure, she is an honourable Monitor of Natural Hygiene.
I speak not to disprove what Emily spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love Science once, not without cause:
What CAM withholds you then, to mourn for Science?
O judgment and testing and replication! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Science Based Medicine,
And I must pause till it come back to me.
As I hinted back at 590, I have taken a little poetic license and post a long response to Emily.
When it comes out of moderation, I will cross-link it on some of her other favorite threads.
I rather hope Calli Arcale (715) will appreciate it.
flip, I have really enjoyed your carefully reasoned comments.
And thanks to all the others who have devoted so much effort to trying to elicit a straight forward answer from Emily.
I'll believe that crapola about science & frog droppings ([...] when the luminiferous aether, spontaneous generation and phlogiston come back into mainstream scientific circulation.
Ah, so there is still hope for my "neo-Caloric" theory of heat.
Neck problem? Even the couple of people I know who use a chiropractor for back pain have the sense not to let them anywhere near their neck.
Oh, well that fits in really well with rambling on and on about "universal laws" coughed up by a handful of random kooks a century ago and denying that they can be questioned.
@726 Squirrelelite
Thank you :)
Depression is an illness that is chronic and variable in its intensity as well as being (sometimes) difficult to treat by pharmaceuticals- *and* it has the added stigma of being called a mental illness.
In many ways, it is thus prime territory for woo: I wonder how many seek out woo because of depression ( which they or their providers may call something else)? There are physical solutions ( herbs, homeopathy, supplements) and physical modalities ( massage,accupuncture, chakra-balancing, other forms of hand-waving) and more *spiritual* approaches. Sitting and talking with a concerned person is not to be discounted ( I've done a bit of hand-holding myself- but not with clients). Woo-meisters often cater to their marks' self-regard with praise, attention and other rewards. When their condition abates they may attribute it to the Ayurvedist's or TCM's intervention rather than regression to the mean.
I am fortunate enough to be somewhat resilient (whether this is physiological or learned- I can't say, but my complicated extended family seems to have quite a few with depressive tendencies) but I am very familiar (again, not cliented-related) with people who have had difficult times finding meds that really helped. A few I know relied on their own creative solutions( sometimes involving therapy)-including writing, art, education and investing in tech( I'm not joking),
re 715 Calli Arcale:
For convenience, I'll repeat them here:
1) We are in agreement that a UTI is a bacterial infection; however, we both acknowledge that there are things which can make it possible for that bacterial infection to become established. What sorts of things are risk factors for UTIs?
2) Does removing these risk factors help with an established infection?
3) What is the prognosis for a person with a UTI, untreated?
4) How do you tell if a person has a UTI?
and lastly
5) What details would you want to know to guide your advice to a person with a suspected UTI? I am willing to answer questions here, publicly.
1) Bacteria might be present, but they are not the prime cause. They are associative. They are accomplices after the fact. They are not 'gate-crashers.'
Calli, we have in & on our bodies, ten cells of microrganisms for every one cell of us. We are outnumbered. They are ubiquitous. We cannot escape them, nor would we want to.
The main risk factor for any infection, viral, bacterial or whatever, is compromised health.
What causes compromised health? Many things, but one of the most common general behaviours is CONVENTIONAL living!
Just look at the States. Or for that matter, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Europe...
Why is the standard of health so poor? Multiple co-morbidities, poly-pharmacy, a lowering of disability-free life expectancy (read carefully), chronic diseases in children rising, infectious diseases still a problem, I better stop here, I haven't got all day.
Why are people falling apart health-wise, despite many of them 'looking good & smelling good'?
I'll tell you Calli. It's largely ( NOT ENTIRELY, lest I get misquoted again) because people LIVE a certain, similar way.
They live conventionally (unhealthily), their bodies "protest" with symptoms & illnesses as discussed ad nauseum previously, & what do most of them do?
They respond by dumbing down their body's dialogue with drugs, surgery or other treatments.
So what happens then?
They deteriorate & their bodies break down in the next weakest area. Only to be again dumbed down.
This is nowhere more evident than the States.
On so many levels the Americans are in poorer health than many countries which spend less on "health-care".
But you would expect the Americans to be the healthiest, as they have more surgery, more drugs, more interventions than most others.
But no. The average American is a walking "time-bomb", a caricature of a human being.
"What a noble creature is Man"- Shakespeare never lived in 2012 in downtown America.
Don't get me wrong. I am not having a go at them, I love them ( I would hope so), I'm having a go at their conventional way of life, which most western countries have adopted.
If you want to live the western way of life, be prepared to die the western way of dying.
2) Yes but not as quickly as A/B's;
3)Excellent, if they are prepared to make the necessary changes to their way of life. Not good if they're not. better they stay with supposed "evidence-based drugs".
BTW: watchful waiting should never be implemented. It is a complete nonsense!
4)You have answered that;
5)Any decent practitioner needs to spend a good 45-60 minutes with a patient asking pertinent qiuestions such as :
a) What is your diet-IN DETAIL?
b) What do you drink?
c) What drugs, supplements, present & past?
d) Obviously a full case history, weight, BP etc;
e) Activity?
f) Rest & sleep?
g) Do they soldier on?
h) Their personal care?
i) What they do when they get prodromal symptoms, & not just of UTI's?
Nothing takes the place of face-to face, but these are some of the questions I ask routinely.
When people are teachable & prepared to take their health seriously (many are not- they want the doctor to take it seriously), when they are prepared to make changes to their mode of living, to learn lessons from their suffering,the results are mostly spectacular.
I find it very amusing that your sceptic colleagues lampoon me & my ideas just as vehemently as they do the altmedders, & ALL I employ are the very agents, materials & influences that are normal to man: appropriate food & drink, movement & rest, sleep, sunshine, fresh air, abstemious living, conservation of energy, goodwill to others, protection from violence & so on.
These things constitute NATURAL HYGIENE. To criticise NH is to criticise life itself. Oh, the irony!
@731 Denice
If one Google Uni's depression one can get thrown onto plenty of wrong paths based on woo. I did a research project on it, and only later when I started reading science blogs did I realise how much crap I'd bought into. Interestingly it had a knock-on effect in that when I finally did reach a point where I was in hospital, and suggested I wasn't into meds (having seen a lot of "docos" on side effects) and mentioned that I thought doing some meditation or tai chi would help - thinking counselling would be a better thing to try than meds. Stress is a big problem and thought if I could learn some techniques to keep me relaxed it would help. His expression was pretty "hell no". At the time I considered it quite snotty and patronising - he didn't do much to explain why he was against it which didn't help my impression of him - but now I see where he was coming from.
Which is really sad because even back then I was somewhat sceptical and if he'd explain his position or why tai chi would be useless I would have changed my mind and gotten far more out of my time at the hospital. Long after I left I actually ended up doing tai chi for a bit, and never could quite understand the "chi" part of it; the visualisations and exercises were a nice form of mild relaxation, but in the end it was just not engaging enough.
Anyway, not to get *totally* sidetracked ;)
But yes, I'd be willing to stake all the money in my pockets that there are plenty of people who get sucked into the vitamins/St John's Wort/buy a cat woo. And I kid you not, some of the advice I read included buying a cat to make you less depressed.
There are plenty of things I'm unsure of with SBM and mental health, but one thing is for sure: SBM is the only one doing science-based research and coming up with ideas/treatments that actually work with a low risk. People like Emily are ignorant to everything but their own stupid view that depression is "just sadness" and therefore can be fixed with a big bowl of strawberry ice-cream. Or in her case, a big bowl of "returning to nature" whatever that is.
re Kreb 684:
Peter Lipson says:
"But real doctors also know that we will never âwin the war on these diseases.â Biology is indifferent to our desires. We all get sick, we all die. We have learned to moderate this in some cases, but we will never âwinâ. Anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something".
Says Dr Fuhrman:
"Doesnât every American have the right to know they donât have to suffer a heart attack or a stroke? They can protect themselves. They could choose otherwise, but shouldnât they be informed of the most effective lifestyle to protect against cancer? Should they just be given drugs for diabetes, cholesterol, blood pressure and more or should they know they have the opportunity for a complete non-drug recovery?"
Peter Lipson:
"Or maybe people have the right to know that they cannot control every aspect of their health, and that if they cannot make necessary lifestyle changes, they should not be âpunishedâ by being denied access to life-saving medications. Not everyone has âthe opportunity for a non-drug recoveryâ. As physicians, our job is to use the best available evidence to help all of our patients. It is not to dispense false promises, fake science, and a heaping portion of blame to those who donât do everything we tell them to."
C'mon Kreb.
You must do better than this.
What an indictment on the mentality of the Peter Lipson brigade & the imposter himself.
Lipson states: " biology is indifferent to our desires".
Well there it is for all to see. Stupidity in print, & daring to try & ridicule one of the great health teachers in the world today.
Biology of course is indifferent to our desires, desires mean nothing without action. Try making a baby on desire!
But biology is definitely changed by our ACTIONS!
Epigenetics even shows genes can be modified by dietary & lifestyle choice.
What is Lipson talking about "we cannot control every aspect of our health" & "people shouldn't be punished by being denied medication".
The man takes us to be fools.
No one says we can control every aspect of our health- NO ONE! No one says people should be 'punished' by being denied their medication. No one!
Please don't isult me or Dr Fuhrman with this stuff in future, Kreb.
Fasting weakens cancer in mice-
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/02/120208152254.htm
Oh goody.
First I'd like the diet and lifestyle plan to modify the genes producing my weak leg, foot, hand muscles and nerves, please.
And I'd also like the other diet and lifestyle plan to develop-rectify-heal the damage already done to my poor suffering hammer toes, extraordinarily arched feet and other assorted consequences of a genetic disorder.
Thanking you in anticipation.
squirrelite@726: Bravo!!!
re 734 Ken:
Thanks for that.
It's nice to see that not everyone on this blog is totally closed minded.
With the American Journal of Cardiology reporting favourable results for the heart, this is just the first wave in the truth coming out.
Ah, light dawns. Emily believes that "microorganism" refers to an undifferentiated group of clones with identical properties. Thus, if the microorganisms that normally live in and on us are harmless, all microorganisms must be likewise harmless. This is as sensible as saying that since we live surrounded by harmless animals (birds in the trees, ants in the yard, etc), it is obviously impossible that any animal could possibly harm us (there's no such thing as a poisonous snake, or a lion).
It's clearly pointless trying to keep up with all of Emily's gishgallop of non-sequiturs and blatant nonsense. Some obvious untruths that are spread around as things "everyone knows" are worth refuting, such as:
It's not.
Which you expect in an aging population in the real world. Aging population plus multiple co-morbidities plus multiple evil dangerous drugs equals?
Nope. I read carefully, and it's not true. The truth is that disability-free life expectancy (as well as life expectancy generally) had been steadily increasing for decades. Here's a comprehensive study. In the USA in 1982 73.5% of those aged 75 and above were non-disabled. By 2004/5 that had increased to 81%. The rate of increase in non-disabled life expectancy was increasing too, from 0.6% per year in 1982 to 2.2% per year in 2004/5. The study concluded:
See also PMID 17913007 which concludes:
Also see PMID 18307477:
There's a powerful smell of frog feces around here and it's not coming from SBM.
People like Emily often yammer on about how unhealthy the USA is, despite all the money spent on health care. Embedded in this argument is the idea that science-based medicine is bad for you. I'd recommend that she watch this very informative talk by Richard Wilkinson on "How economic inequality harms societies"
http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_wilkinson.html
I'd like to understand how her "diet and lifestyle" arguments jibe with the incredibly robust data shown in the talk. How they explain the substantial differences between developed countries, all of which used science-based medicine.
squirrelelite -- very nice! It's a good play to borrow from, too. Emily has shown she can quote Hamlet; it's nice to see some of the other plays get attention.
Emily -- I will answer you in a bit, once I am through with my morning e-mails. It will take a bit of time to get through that.
@ flip:
I differentiate treatments into those that make you feel better and those that actually can *make* you better ( invoke a physiological change that is not transient):if doing t'ai chi or taking walks helps, by making you *feel better*, even if transiently, why not? ( I play tennis: indoor all year) Exercise may help minor depression. When a person makes the effort to study ( even woo), buy supplements or do *anything*: their own act of agency -doing *something*- itself may make them feel better in of itself.
Cognitive therapy teaches methods to improve your live and meds can affect levels of neurotransmitters or how long they persist ( re-uptake). Sometimes activities that we use to distract us and use as antagonists to depression may assist us in making a better life- leading to more interesting work or more money. A prof of mine believed that optimism can be learned. Be that as it may.
- btw- Emily has now gone and done the unthinkable- she's insulted Peter Lipson. That's a no-no around these here parts.
1) What sorts of things are risk factors for UTIs?
1) Bacteria might be present, but they are not the prime cause. They are associative. They are accomplices after the fact. They are not 'gate-crashers.'
The criminal justice analogy is an interesting one; normally, accomplices are considered part of the crime as well. Do you argue that accomplices should not be punished merely because it wasn't their idea? Probably not.
Calli, we have in & on our bodies, ten cells of microrganisms for every one cell of us. We are outnumbered. They are ubiquitous. We cannot escape them, nor would we want to.
It is true that we have a great many bacteria living on us at all times -- the technical term for this is "commensal microorganisms." Our gut is positively teeming with them, and this is a good thing; they are extremely important to our digestion, and our gut cannot function without them.
But you say bacteria are not gate crashers. Are you arguing, then, that it is normal for E. coli to live in the urinary bladder in sufficient numbers to be found in a clean catch urine specimen?
The main risk factor for any infection, viral, bacterial or whatever, is compromised health.
That's pretty vague. Compromised health compromises the immune system, which makes infection more likely for reasons too obvious to bother spelling out. Yet not everyone with compromised health will get an infection, and people with normal health can get infections too; obviously this is just about relative risk and not an absolute.
Question: do you think "compromised health" is the only risk factor?
Why is the standard of health so poor? Multiple co-morbidities, poly-pharmacy, a lowering of disability-free life expectancy (read carefully), chronic diseases in children rising, infectious diseases still a problem, I better stop here, I haven't got all day.
You don't have to. We're speaking specifically about UTIs. What causes UTIs? What makes UTIs a problem? And are there any *specific* risk factors? "Conventional living" is pretty vague. Right now, it appears you are suggesting that practically anything could be a cause. What specifically is a risk factor for UTIs? I know of a few that mainstream medicine describes as risk factors; I'm curious what Natural Hygeine says are risk factors for UTIs.
2) Does removing these risk factors help with an established infection?
2) Yes but not as quickly as A/B's;
So, removing the risk factors during an existing UTI will, eventually, cure the UTI without antibiotics? Are you sure the infection isn't merely running its course? Sometimes people did survive UTIs in the old days, although they often were sickly afterwards due to kidney damage. You say I could treat a UTI without antibiotics; before making a decision to do so, I'd like to know:
a) How long will it take before I am relieved of my symptoms? In my last UTI, I was too lethargic to work. That's a significant problem.
b) How big is the risk of kidney damage while I wait for my immune system to overcome the infection?
c) How big is the risk of death due to sepsis, if my immune system is unable to overcome the infection before it reaches my bloodstream?
3) What is the prognosis for a person with a UTI, untreated?
3)Excellent, if they are prepared to make the necessary changes to their way of life. Not good if they're not. better they stay with supposed "evidence-based drugs".
BTW: watchful waiting should never be implemented. It is a complete nonsense!
By "watchful waiting", do you mean one should not let an infection go, or do you mean that it is silly to wait for confirmation of an infection? I just want to be clear on that point.
I'd like a more precise prognosis, though. How long will it take to recover? What will their experience be while they recover?
4) How do you tell if a person has a UTI?
4)You have answered that;
No, I answered how *I* would tell. How would you tell? I wanted to know how a Natural Hygeine practitioner determines this, or whether it's not actually critical (in your opinion) to get a definite diagnosis before proceeding.
What details would you want to know to guide your advice to a person with a suspected UTI?
5)Any decent practitioner needs to spend a good 45-60 minutes with a patient asking pertinent qiuestions such as :
Fair enough; so understand my answers will be limited to the space available, and I'll understand that you could not be expected to give the best possible diagnostic advice.
a) What is your diet-IN DETAIL?
How much detail is really neccesary? Would you require a food diary? If so, why? I don't think that would be appreciated by the other readers here, so I'll speak in generalities.
I eat an omnivorous diet. I prefer to cook from scratch, but will eat prepackaged food on occasion. (I'm frugal and enjoy cooking, though, so my preference is for cooking from scratch.) My favorite greens are spinach, broccoli, and asparagus, though I also like odder things like dandelion, and I love fruit, with a particular penchant for kiwis. (A kiwi is my regular afternoon snack item.) I eat chicken, preferably either grilled or sauteed. My guilty pleasure every evening is a mini Reeces peanut butter cup. I have steak occasionally, but hamburger more often as a source of red meat; the beauty of hamburger is that any cut of meat will do, and I'm a big believer in using the entire animal. (There's been some tizzy on the Internet lately about McDonald's treating organ meats so they can be used in hamburger, and I actually don't have a problem with that. If we're going to kill animals for food, I think we have a moral responsibility to do it efficiently, and use the whole animal.) I eat more poultry than beef, though. Bacon once in a while; I'm not a big pork fan. (It's okay; just not my first choice.) I love fish, especially wild-caught salmon and freshwater fish such as trout. The best trout is one I've caught myself in a high mountain lake and cooked over a wood fire in the wilderness. Yes, I have done that. ;-) (The following morning, we had pancakes made with wild huckleberries. Oh, that was heavenly!) I eat plenty of dairy, particularly cheese. I adore cheese, and I'm afraid I've become a bit of a Parmesan snob; if it's not from Parma, it doesn't count. ;-) I also love to bake, and last weekend I added a new thing to my repertoire: pocket pies. So now I have homemade pocket pies to take for lunch.
I can tell you exactly what I've eaten today. For breakfast, I had two waffles, with agave syrup and a little butter. (I'll put the beverages in the next section.) My lunch will be one of my pocket pies (poached chicken, steamed broccoli, cojack cheese, and a gravy made from the poaching liquid, inside a flaky pastry crust of unbleached flour, butter, shortening, and a small amount of sugar) and a tub of Greek-style yogurt, peach-cinnamon flavor. My brother-in-law introduced me to those; they're quite extraordinary. Much better than the bland stuff I'd had before, and well worth the extra cost. Don't know what dinner will be yet. Last night it was something new that the butcher had already prepared (just take home and grill): flank steak, garlic butter, and spinach rolled into a rosette. It was fabulous. I prepared it with steamed asparagus and Bearnaise sauce. (From scratch; I've never cared for prepackaged Hollandaise or Bearnaise, even if it does mean taking more time to do the white wine and tarragon reduction at the start.)
b) What do you drink?
I allow myself one caffeinated soda a day, in the morining; today it's Dr Pepper. The carbolic acid helps cut through some of the morning blahs. (I know it's largely psychological, but that's okay with me.) I usually have about one glass of milk every day, sometimes two. I drink at least two glasses of water, and usually a couple of cups of tea, sometimes more. I'm stingy with the tea leaves, and reuse them -- consequently, only half of the tea is actually caffeinated. On average, I drink the equivalent of eight glasses of water a day, not because of the fairly arbitrary mainstream recommendation, but because of the habit I picked up while breastfeeding to ensure adequate hydration at all times. Occasionally, I take a ginger ale later in the day. Two or three times a week, I may also have an alcoholic beverage, typically either beer (Guiness, Fraoch, or one of the local microbrews most of the time) or wine (usually red -- I have an argon-gas wine preservation kit, so I can open a bottle of nice wine and take a week to finish it off without any oxidation problems).
c) What drugs, supplements, present & past?
I do not trust myself to accurately recall 36 years of prescribing history, so I'll just tell you what I'm taking right now, and for how long I've been taking it.
* 40mg omeprazole once daily; been taking for several years due to GERD (the anatomical kind; my cardiac valve does not close properly and I was experiencing significant esophageal erosion)
* 750 mg Tums as a calcium supplement once daily, in hopes of reducing lifelong fracture risks associated with omeprazole (before I was on the omeprazole, I was taking far more than this every day)
* a generic version of Ortho Tricyclen (don't remember the exact name of the generic one; they all have goofy names with "tri" in there somewhere, and my pharmacy recently switched their generic provider so it changed) for the normal indication
* 500 mg amoxicillin, twice daily, for ten days; today is actually the tenth day, so I have only one dose left
* Flintstone's chewable, once daily; it's the same one my kids take
Additionally, I occasionally use loratidine (Claritin), and I have an active prescription for 90 mcg albuterol inhaler, but I have not required either recently. I do occasionally get tension headaches; ibuprofen is usually my pain reliever of choice for that, though my front-line treatment is ice and a good lie-down.
d) Obviously a full case history, weight, BP etc;
Case history? NOt sure how much detail, but here's a brief look.
Age 4: Hospitalized for meningitis. Cause never determined; the hospital managed to lose two spinal tap specimens, and my parents (rightly) refused to permit a third to be performed. Judging by the course of the disease, it's suspected to have been viral, but was given antibiotics and placed in isolation anyway in case of HiB.
Age 5: Plastic surgery to correct "Prince Charles" ears. (Not sure it was worth it, but at five, it's not really your own decision.)
Age 6: Outpatient surgery to correct umbilical hernia.
Age ??? (gradeschool, anyway): Diagnosed with urinary diverticulum, detected by voiding cystourethrogram.
Age 10 or so (can't remember exactly): diagnosed with exercise-induced asthma.
Age 13 or so: second VUCG and a renal function test using radiotagged stuff that my kidneys would process to make sure the recurrent infections hadn't damaged the kidneys; no evidence of damage was found
Age 19: Surgical extraction of impacted wisdom teeth.
Age 23: diagnosed with GERD (though I know I'd had it longer; just didn't realize that isn't normal) during endoscopy; had a stricture at the bottom of the esophagus dialated and placed on a 6-week course of Nexium to allow the erosion to heal
Age 28: Had first child, 10 days past due, via emergency c-section (with general anesthesia) due to fetal distress; baby turned out okay.
Age 32: Had second child, 2 days prior to due date, via non-emergency but unplanned c-section due to breech presentation; due to non-emergency status, I was able to be awake for this one.
Age 33: Had third VUCG because my doctor wanted to have confirmation of the diverticulum; yep, it's still there. Somewhere around this time, also started taking 20mg omeprazole and went on birth control as I'm not planning on having any more kids at this time.
Age 34: Had second endoscopy; discovered that the 20mg was not providing adequate control. I am now on 40mg.
Age 35: Embarked on a regular exercise program. This has been huge! I feel better than I have since high school, when I was on the swim team and got plenty of exercise. I can also run a respectable distance now, which I never could before, not even while I was swimming competitively, because now I know what the frack I'm doing. ;-)
Height: 5'3". Weight: 140 lbs (working on reducing that gradually; I've lost 5 pounds in the past year, and it appears to be staying off -- my target is 130). BP at my last visit was 112/72, pulse was 88 bpm. Last time I had my oxygen checked (it is checked regularly because of my asthma), it was 100.
e) Activity?
I have a desk job, which is itself a risk factor for a lot of things. To counteract that, I get at least 15 minutes of vigorous exercise every day, and more on the weekends, and take walks around the office several times a day. (This has also greatly helped my tension headaches.) My workouts vary (I like to keep it interesting) but always include both strength-training and aerobics. I don't use a Stairmaster; I use actual stairs. I do pushups, situps, squats, curls with 10lb weights (I'll need to increase that, actually), 10 minute jogs, etc, and, my personal favorite, Dance, Dance Revolution. (It really is a good aerobic workout, and one of my coworkers lost 50 pounds doing it, which is what inspired me to try it out.)
f) Rest & sleep?
I sleep soundly 7-8 hours a night. I do not nap; it's never really worked out for me, probably because I'm a heavy sleeper. My husband tells me I rarely snore, except while pregnant; then he actually was contemplating sleeping in the guest room. :-D
g) Do they soldier on?
Meaning? I'm not quite sure what you define as "soldiering on".
h) Their personal care?
Personal hygeine, in other words? I bathe daily, except sometimes on weekends if the kids wake up before me; then it isn't always possible. ;-) I brush my teeth nightly, and occasionally remember to do it in the morning as well. I floss regularly. (Feels gross if I don't.) I wash my hands frequently, especially when cooking. To avoid dishpan hands, I use a moisturizing lotion; actually, the one I favor is Udderly Smooth. I know, it's made for cows, but it works great on humans too. (It had been recommended by the yarn store where I feed my knitting habit, because it's unscented and doesn't leave a residue on the yarn.) At work, I also sometimes use a specialized lotion meant to ensure good conductivity with our anti-static wrist straps. Relevant to UTIs, I always wipe in the correct direction (to the back), use each piece of paper only once, and always relieve myself after being intimate.
i) What they do when they get prodromal symptoms, & not just of UTI's?
Depends on the symptoms, obviously. Most prodromal symptoms are vague, making it difficult to guide one's actions intelligently. On this particular UTI, the first symptom I got was lethargy. I responded to that by resting. It helped, definitely, but it didn't resolve the problem. I'd be tired again within half an hour. I took two days off work because of it. Second symptom was an intermittent low-grade fever; I monitored that, keen to see if it would exceed 101 and become anything to worry about. Then symptom number three: my pee started to smell bad. At this point, I made a doctor's appointment. By the time of the appointment, I had also developed lower abdominal pain, urgency, and a burning sensation when urinating -- classic UTI symptoms. I could have taken phenazopyradine for those, but I wanted to wait until after the urinalysis, lest that mess things up. (It dramatically changes the color of the urine, which would be very inconvenient to whatever lab tech had to look at it through a microscope.)
I find it very amusing that your sceptic colleagues lampoon me & my ideas just as vehemently as they do the altmedders, & ALL I employ are the very agents, materials & influences that are normal to man: appropriate food & drink, movement & rest, sleep, sunshine, fresh air, abstemious living, conservation of energy, goodwill to others, protection from violence & so on.
I think, then, that you misunderstand their criticism. Their concern is not with the choice of materials but that you may be expecting them to do more than they can.
Emily -
Therefore, do you claim that there can be not only influenza without the virus, but that there can be any disease without the germ that is associated (by science-based medicine) with that disease?
@Calli
When I gave up dairy, which I love, my asthma cleared up-no longer need inhaler-
Ken -- possibly you have an allergy to milk casein, then. You might want to consult an allergist, because casein shows up in far more places than people realize, and it would probably be good to know whether it's something that could cause bigger problems down the road. Still, regardless of the reason, it's great you were able to find and remove your trigger!
My asthma is exercise-induced. One of the oddities of that form of asthma is that the best treatment is . . . exercise! Seriously. You have to take it gently at the outset, so you don't trigger attacks, and then gradually ramp up. I have not had a single attack since I began my regular workout regimen, and that's longer than I've gone without an attack since high school. I still use my peak flow meter periodically, just to monitor things; I range from 475-500 liters per minute, which is about my optimal range.
Emily @734:
daring to try & ridicule one of the great health teachers in the world today.
After all the appeals to the readers to think for themselves, it comes down to an appeal to authority.
@Emily:
1) Existing genes can be turned on or off. This isn't going to do any good for someone with, say, hemophilia.
2) Some genes can be epigenetically changed by diet and lifestyle, not all of them.
Matthew Cline -- yeah, epigenetics isn't about changing genes but rather their expression. It's a subtle but important distinction. The body normally resists the actual genes changing, through error detection and correction methods in the transcription process, because it doesn't usually end well.
Emily,
I am glad that you are not claiming that we can control every aspect of our health, and that you do not want to deny people their medication. However, that doesn't mean nobody thinks that way, or argues for those ideas.
There are people who will blame the victim for just about any health problem. That's not just diseases where the person may have a large role; the parents of infants born with genetic diseases will be told that the baby somehow "chose" to suffer in that way. And there are certainly people who will deny patients their medicine, or try to--because the patient is somehow perceived as "unworthy" (he rode a motorcycle, she used to smoke, they're fat or poor) or because the medicine can be harmful in some cases, or is alleged to be. Heroin for people dying of cancer is a common example, because some people claim that it's better to die in horrible pain than to die physically addicted to narcotics. Somehow, they're always talking about other people's pain or hypothetical addiction, not their own.
ken -- my reply is in moderation, so short version: kudos to you for finding your trigger! Mine is exercise-induced, so that won't help me. However, getting into better physical condition did; it's been over a year since I've had an attack.
@743 Denice
Yes, you're right. And thank you for the discussion on this :)
... Emily seems to think it's a bad thing if one says "I don't know". She doesn't know a lot of the answers to our questions, but instead of admitting she doesn't know (and science does it all the time) she just keeps putting her foot in it.
But then I suppose one can't market oneself as having all the answers if you admit you don't know them.
@744 Calli
Here here!
@751 Vicki
Including Emily. See her list of "causes" here, although there are many other examples in her comments.
Broken Link @741,
Thanks for the TED link. That was interesting, and useful, thanks!
I tip my hat to Calli for her patient attempts to engage with Emily.
Certainly it is more than I could ever manage.
744 Calli Arcale:
Would any one like to give their opinion of Calli's dietary intake & if it is OK?
What would SBM say about it?
If you have something to say, say it. You wore out the Holy Mother routine quite some time ago.
re 744:
"Their concern is not with the choice of materials but that you may be expecting them to do more than they can".
"They (the materials, agents & influences) really DO nothing.
Food simply provides nutrients, air provides oxygen, rest & sleep provide repose for the entire organism, sunshine provides Vitamin D & other factors, water provides .... & so on.
They do not work on the body, the body works on them.
The body does all the doing.
The difference these factors make in health & disease is immense, depending upon their application.
Lifestyle factors account for a great percentage of disease, this is non-negotiable. The % might vary from researcher to researcher.
NH practitioners would say a minimum of 80% of disease is lifestyle related. That would be my estimate, at a minimum.
When these facors are REALLY understood, & applied appropriately, the results are truely staggering, as I've seen for many, many years.
Our needs for these primary health factors never vary, just our CAPACITIES!
Just like the difference of 1 degree separates water from steam, (from 211 to 212 F), so can adjustments to our micro-behaviours have huge benefits to not only health generally, but pathology reversal.
re 757:
You are the court jester of this blog, Narad, but unlike the Shakespearean versions from whom I learned a lot, I must say I have learned absolutely nothing from you.
So please let us know your opinion of such a diet.
You obviously majored in "snappy criticism", so please, shock me & provide a lucid opinion.
Funnily enough I know better than to offer an opinion on medicine when I have no training. Wild speculation seems perfectly ok for anyone involved in CAM, where one can offer medical advice without a licence to do so.
Emily@758 -- Why are you trying so hard to get out of answering Calli?
Shay, she never answered the question I posted on Jan. 14th in comment #48!
I gave up on her ages ago. She is an uneducated loon who is stuck in her Htrae delusions.
"Why is the standard of health so poor?"
It's not.
Kreb states the standard of health today is not poor.
We must live in parallel universes.
From my vantage point, from what I read, study & observe, the standard of health is worse than poor
Just observe: epidemic obesity, epidemic cancer, epidemic CHD, epidemic diabetes, strokes, auto-immune disease, increasing childhood chronic diseases such as asthma, altzeimers, kidney disease........
Nearly all adults over 45 on medication. And as Dr John McDougall states; only sick people take medication.
Obviously your definition of "poor health"" is different than mine.
"Multiple co-morbidities, poly-pharmacy"
Which you expect in an aging population in the real world.
How sad & tragic your view is! This is the telling diffrerence. I see lots of elederly patients ( 75-85) & what do I see?
I see patients who are stereotyped by SBM every day!!
"Oh, what do you expect at your age? Just take these little pills & everything will be fine".
I see patients in their mid 80's able to come OFF many medications when they are prepared to make some changes. Yes that's right, I see them.
I know it's anecdotal & it will bounce off you, but just this week I had 2 ladies ring me & personally thank me because their mothers, one 80 & one 84, have been able to reduce their total med's by 50% in 3 months, one being able to come off BP med's altogether, & they have gained a new lease on life.
Were these changes I recommended invasive? No!
Were they costly? Not a dime!
Were they difficult & unpleasant? Not at all, in fact the 2 daughters said their parents were "telling the world" how they had had turned their health around by complying with some very simple recommendations.
Were these changes ever encouraged by their doctors? Not on your life, because THEY HAD NEVER HEARD OF THEM!!!
That's because SBM is so narrow in its focus, waiting for the 'gold standard' RCT's to 'prove' the efficacy of the intervention.
There are so many areas which you guys label quackery which common sense screams at us to use.
One lady said her mother's doctor was "stunned'at her improvements & was quite happy to agree to get her off the BP med's, which, incidentally, she had been off for 19 years! And these 2 calls came in just this week, unsolicited. This happens REGULARLY!
You talk about risk versus benefit. No risk, unquantifiable benefit!
OMG- no wonder the elderly are a wonderful market for bigpharma, aided & abetted by their salesmen, the doctors.(Remember Dr Marcia Angell- it was she who used the term "handmaiden" to describe medicine's cowtowing to the drug companies).
Further, with the journal you linked, it all boils down to what you define as "disability".
Like the term "poor standard of health", we have to agree to disagree on the term "disabilty".
Tat tvam asi.
What makes you think that I would have any particular "opinion" of Calli's diet? I'm not the one toting around a ritualistic food-combining fetish. If you're planning to launch your masterstroke or something, get it over with. Your métier of melodrama isn't really suited to suspense.
"Shay, she never answered the question I posted on Jan. 14th in comment #48!
I gave up on her ages ago. She is an uneducated loon who is stuck in her Htrae delusions".
I have answered it.
And that is I just don't see results through suppression as endorsing an intervention.
Why was the mortality from infectious diseases dropping steadily since 1890, well before vaccines?
Headaches could be wiped out too by medication, but that doesn't remove the causes.
But then, you don't know much about causes, if they aren't called germs.
And BTW, the more meaningless criticism I get from people like, who bring nothing in the way of health wisdom to the table, the more my self -belief is vindicated.
What the fuck does "bringing health wisdom to the table" mean to you, Emily? Maybe you could issue pamphlets of what items may be raised before the Oracle without its having to resort to the fainting couch.
No, you did not answer the question as it was asked. And please stop confusing mortality with morbidity. I specifically asked about morbidity.
All you have demonstrated is that you are confused about vocabulary.
Well there is good news and bad news for this newest troll.
The good news is that she has successful edged out the SFB troll.
The bad news is that I have e-mailed this blog and her loony posts to the health spa where she is employed.
Thank you Emily.
I had thought of asking you a question:
What method do you use do determine that Natural Hygiene works? Specifically, how do you tell which methods work and which do not and for what conditions in the person being monitored.
But, I see you have just answered my question.
In other words, if people criticize your claims for the benefits of Natural Hygiene and you disagree with their understanding of biology and medicine, that is all you need to show you are right !?!?
Personally, I prefer the methods of science, which is open for other people to prove or disprove your experimental results and explanatory theories. In particular, it is important to criticize your own work, to look for ways in which you may be wrong. But that is not your way, is it?
Also, Emily, another question.
If, as I understand you to state, the germs that science blames for communicable diseases are there all along, and it is these causes that you keep siting that really cause the disease, how do you explain the phenomenon of contagion, which has been known at least since medieval times and the black plague?
That is, how does a disease spread from one person who has the disease to another person and then others?
This was demonstrated quite clearly with DNA testing to identify the H1N1 version of influenza and is repeatedly seen by monitoring outbreaks of diseases whose incidence (not just mortality) has been drastically reduced, like measles and pertussis.
What foods would you serve at a pox party to cause the children to develop chicken pox?
Let's return to the archive:
This seems to define Emily's mixed semantic-causal superstructure. All else is circular, flowery decoration. If you die in a car accident, it is pari passu "because of" the CAR or, more specifically, as far the hell away as one can get things from actual biology. If one successfully hangs oneself, it is "because of" the ROPE. If there were no FIRE, people would not DIE after being BURNED (by FIRE). One must eliminate the CAUSES.
Emily -
Your behavior in these conversations is very troubling, for several reasons.
You have been very strongly pushing a particular approach to health while repeatedly stating that you are not selling anything, and have no profit motive ("THERE IS NO PROFIT!!!"), and you criticize those in conventional medicine who do make a profit from their involvement as having a conflict of interest. Yet, you eventually admit (though it had been clear from the outset) that in truth, you too make money from selling health services; you wrote, "there is no money in sipping water" -- yet you charge patients for precisely that. Now, you may or may not be biased by the profit motive (as you claim others are), but the fact that you chose to conceal that fact until it was forced out of you shows that you were afraid of the truth. The truth about yourself. If you have that fear, imagine how readers here feel about your evasions; they are rightly interpreted as evidence of a guilty conscience. As usual, it's not the crime (having a financial interest in pushing a particular philosophy), it's the cover-up (pointedly failing to disclose that interest) that does most of the (fatal) damage to your integrity.
It has also not escaped nearly everyone's notice that you evade certain questions, or even ignore them completely, as though trying to pretend that you didn't see them, when it is clear that you have. Again, evasion is no mystery; it means you are afraid of the answers to those questions, and it is clear to others that you have that fear of the truth. Ergo, we do not even need to hear those answers to know that they would undermine your position; that's why you withhold them.
The lying about how many children you have is also deeply unsettling. But, again, the lying about why you lied is more damaging still. When challenged about having said you have four children, when you later said you had three, you wrote, "I did make a typo much earlier when rushing & pressed 4 instead of 3." This claim too was false, as you stated you had four children not once, not twice, but three times. And you know what Goldfinger said about that. Again, it seems you were afraid of being truthful.
You have admitted that some of your approaches violate the core principles of other of your approaches; that they contradict one another. Yet you constantly criticize science-based medicine for any act that contradicts those same principles. I believe the word for that is "hypocrisy". I hope you would understand that you will make no headway whatsoever with getting your philosophies understood, much less adopted, when you pick and choose when to ingore them yourself.
It is also deeply hypocritical to attack others who are resistant to your views when you yourself are unashamedly closed-minded on medical issues, as you have declared on more than one occasion. As you are clearly not going to maintain an unbiased, self-critical attitude about health, we cannot but conclude that you might be harboring wrong-headed views that you refuse to re-examine. Closed-mindedness is yet another indicator of fear, of course; fear of discovering that one might be wrong.
So, we see that fear is a theme that runs through these distressing aspects of your behavior here; more specifically, fear of truth. It's really sad that someone who seems so passionate is crippled by being so afraid of truth, and that you deny yourself of any persuasive power because it is so evident that you're not even confident enough in your own beliefs to risk discovering they might be wrong.
Lastly, it is really disappointing that you overestimate your own intelligence and at the same time, underestimate the intelligence of readers here. It stuns me that you would say "I wish at this stage to give no hint to anyone as to my true identity," when your posts had long before made it so obvious that someone interested could discern it in about two minutes of effort. But I suppose it makes sense that you wouldn't want anyone who is considering paying you for your services to read these threads and discover your profound reluctance to examine the tenets of your approach to health with a truly open-minded attitude, and to admit the errors and conflicts uncovered through that process.
Lilady -
What would be the point? She said she runs the clinic.
Occamslaser:
Though that would only be good news if it was on Htrae.
(yes, I know it shows the level of literature I read in high school, but I stopped buying them when they went over twenty five cents... yes, I am old)
She does not run the clinic and she does not own it. Her bosses will be quite surprised at the "publicity" she is generating for them.
Would any one like to give their opinion of Calli's dietary intake & if it is OK?
I like to think that my nearest and dearest would stage an intervention and take away my internet access if I were ever to type a sentence as creepy and presumptuous as that.
@lilady: I don't think that tactic improves by virtue of who's rolling it out.
re 764:
"No, you did not answer the question as it was asked. And please stop confusing mortality with morbidity. I specifically asked about morbidity"
I'm not confusing them.
And I have given your question all the space it deserves.
Why did mortality from "infectious" diseases consistently decline from 1890 on, without your beloved witches' brew?
@762 Narad
Thanks for teaching me a bit of Sanskrit. Ah, the things I learn if I just pay attention and read :)
Oh, and have the balls to investigate what it means for myself...
@765 Lilady
Wait, what? How did you work that out? Did I miss something? ...
@766 Squirrelelite
She's already stated she keeps no 'scientific' records (patient records yes), but basically it seems to be a "I just know it does" approach. According to her, Natural Hygienists don't make experiments or do any research; except of course, when she conveniently links to sites that say they do. In other words, confirmation bias and contradictions.
"@lilady: I don't think that tactic improves by virtue of who's rolling it out."
Damn straight. What are we, the anti-vaccination movement? I don't know what twisted high-horse you've found yourself on lilady, unless you're acting to prevent imminent harm, or serious ethical lapses you've got no business e-mailing people's place of employment, and trying to bully or embarrass people in their offline life because of your disagreement online.
lilady, I'm sorry (because I like you & I often enjoy your comments), but Narad (772) & Ender are right. It's wrong when those who disagree with something that (eg) Orac's said try to cause trouble for him with his boss, & it's just as wrong when someone on 'our' side of the fence does the same.
A few comments above by Emily - ( paraphrases) most illness is lifestyle related, getting people off meds, it's not aging but lifestyle (doctors don't know this), the elderly are a target for pharma marketting-
Why oh why does this seem familiar? Recently, as I've noted @ RI, I have heard a well-known woo-meister entice his audience with breathtakingly cavalier statements about how unnecessary meds ( and doctors and psychologists) *really* are- it's all lifestyle, if you "live right" you will be around until you're "150" ( verbatim), meds are merely a profit-generating tool of corrupt corporations etc.*Then* he talks about how he gets folks he counsels off meds and tells callers to do the same.
I believe the playwright O'Neill called this *pipe dreams*.
People are afraid of aging and dying and they don't like to be restricted by meds and doctors' orders: denial of reality and necessity might make you feel better in the short run but may have diasterous consequences- especially poorly controlled bp. Depression is another issue I've heard discussed, usually followed by a rant against psychiatry/ psychology/ pharma.
People with psychological conditions are especially vulnerable to messages like these: many hate meds and truthfully, some are only given a modicum of help with standard meds ( although others recieve greater assistance through drugs) and have issues with taking orders *however* ( BIG *however*) they have no idea *which* people will be helped or not- a woman calls and discusses her rx for prozac- she is "counselled" about how dangerous it is, how it really doesn't help, how it may lead to suicide. How does a fellow with a degree from a mail-order university know if she is one of the people who will be helped or not? *All* anti-depressant efficacy is summarily dismissed. Then, the audience is regalled with tales of how people miraculously improved their conditions *sans* pharma and SBM- this is also lovingly portrayed in self-produced *documentaries*.
There oughta be a law...
Emily:
That's just semantics; the point is still that people are concerned that what you are promoting may not be able to do what you claim it can. They're obviously not saying you shouldn't eat or shouldn't fast; they're concerned you're expecting magical results from fasting or from eating a particular way.
Of course, anyone whose taken chemistry should know that what you've said (that these materials do not work on the body) is not really true. Nutrients, oxygen, etc are not inert, and they will affect the body even if it's dead. Molecular oxygen in particular is very reactive, and many of our biological processes are centered around preventing it from killing us. (Yes, we depend on it, but it's a dangerous thing for one's biological processes to require. Actually, if you want to read something really cool, read about the Oxygen Catastrophe. It occurred about 2.4 billion years ago, radically altered the environment of the planet, and forced the evolution of aerobic organisms.)
Former chem major me has to nitpick; the transition between liquid water and steam is actually more complex than that, and is heavily dependent on atmospheric pressure. On the surface of Mars, for instance, the air temperature sometimes rises above the melting point of water. However, the atmosphere pressure is very low; the water boils immediately, just as carbon dioxide does on Earth. One really cool thing the Mars Phoenix Lander sent back was video of a water droplet (condensation from water melted and vaporized by the spacecraft's landing rockets) on one of its landing struts. The droplet boiled away before it could refreeze.
Well, I was rather hoping *you* would. ;-) Obviously I think it's okay, or I wouldn't be eating it.
@779 flip
Exactly!
I didn't think I had any better chance of getting a direct and honest answer from her than Chris and several others have had.
I just wanted to make the point for the benefit of our other readers.
lilady -
Based on this statement, I believe you have incorrectly identified the place of "Emily's" employ. Perhaps you can post some scrap of information that is not in itself identifiable so that I can verify this mismatch with my own findings, such as the last two digits of the phone number, or the last couple of digits of the IP address of the web site?
Emily @ 778:
While we wait for my primary response to your response to me to come out of moderation, I thought I'd respond to this one, because it's not difficult. The main factor reducing the rate of infectious disease in the 19th Century was public sanitation. Reading the history of the London sewer system in the 19th Century is instructive.
@OccamsLaser: I didn't send an email...I was hoping that Emily would perchance reveal that she is just copy/pasting her quotes and do a flip-flop once again, denying that she ever stated (that) she "runs the clinic".
I suspect that she has some connection with a site (last two telephone number digits "55").
.
lilady -
I do not think you have identified the primary place of her practice. It seems she is, indeed, a principal at her clinic, so her characterization is not inaccurate.
OccamsLaser -- your reply at 772 is very good, and not merely because I happen to agree with it; you are eloquent, respectful, calm, and, in the end, brutally honest about your impression of Emily. I hope she reads it, though I rather doubt she'll reply to it.
I am still curious whether she'll give her opinion of my diet. I am also curious whether or not she'll make use of my medical history, which I provided above (especially since the actual cause of my recurrent UTIs can be fairly easily found in that). It seems interesting to me that of all the things I provided, the only part she's commented on so far is the diet. Perhaps when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail, though in that case, I wonder why she even bothered to ask about the other things. If all you're even intending to use is a hammer, why ask if a screw is philips or flathead? It's not as if it matters.
Of course, I have some other questions, but I'm willing to settle on just the diet question for the moment. I'm sure she is a very busy woman.
Emily,
I think we established that some time ago. As countries become wealthier, diseases of malnutrition and infectious diseases decline, but diseases of affluence and inflammation increase. I agree that we need to work harder to prevent diseases of affluence, by persuading people to eat more healthily, lose weight and exercise more. That's a challenge as we are genetically programmed to enjoy eating sweet and fatty foods, and we don't need to run around hunting and gathering as we once did.
Nothing you have written here suggests to me that Natural Hygiene will help in any way. The patients you see are motivated to change their diet and lifestyle, and they presumably believe to some extent that this will bring them the miraculous results you promise. That's not true of the vast majority of people who have a poor diet, are overweight and at risk of future ill-health. What would you do for these people? Follow them around the supermarket taking things out of their shopping baskets? Refuse them medication once they are sick? Force them onto a treadmill at gunpoint?
I also agree that we have problems with the way drugs are developed and licensed, that over-prescription is often a problem and that we need to improve healthcare in many ways. I don't see this as evidence that SBM is fundamentally flawed and that 90% of it is worse than useless. I see it as a reason to promote SBM even more - the use of checklists in hospitals and medication reviews by pharmacists are supported by SBM for example. I think we need to change the law to make drug companies more accountable. I just don't believe that most people are being poisoned into chronic ill health, as you claim, and I don't think the evidence supports that view.
Yet the figures show steadily increasing life expectancy, falling mortality from heart disease and cancer and increased disability-free life expectancy. This isn't consistent with the picture you paint.
Now there we agree there is a problem, but it's a disease of affluence, due to people eating and living a lifestyle that their doctor tells them is unwise, not because 90% of SBM is dangerous. Doctors don't generally offer you a burger with your health check, and if people choose to ignore their advice there is little they can do.
Risk of cancer increases with age, for obvious reasons, so you would expect to see an increase as our population lives longer. Put another way, the person who several decades ago would have died in childbirth or from an infectious disease in her 20s is now getting cancer in her 70s. Age-adjusted incidence of cancer in the US has been falling, albeit slowly (incidence in 1999 489 per 100,000, in 2008 463 per 100,000). Mortality from cancer has been falling since 1990 (215 per 100,000 compared with 176 per 100,000 in 2008).
A recent BMJ article found that death rates for heart attacks in the UK fell by 50% in men and 53% in women between 2002 and 2010 (PMID 22279113). Both the number of heart attacks and the mortality after a heart attack fell. I believe similar patterns are being seen in the US.
Here we agree, diseases of affluence are increasing. We need to improve people's diet and lifestyle and get them to lose weight. I think the diet recommended by SBM would be good. I doubt that Natural Hygiene principles will be very useful, but feel free to prove me wrong with some evidence. I would be delighted to find that fasting really can cure a multitude of diseases. Then you would just need to find a way to persuade people to do it.
Between 1995 and 2005 stroke mortality fell by about 30 percent (CDC figures).
These are increasing, for reasons that are poorly understood. It's interesting that autoimmune diseases are rarely seen where infectious diseases are common. I suspect it's another aspect of our exchange of infection for inflammation as we become more affluent. I'm sure you will claim, with zero evidence, that natural hygiene can magically prevent or reverse autoimmune diseases. I am sceptical but willing to accept good quality evidence if and when it becomes available. What's your explanation for the self-protecting human body attacking itself by the way?
Another disease that we seem to have acquired in exchange for our children not dying of infectious diseases in their thousands any more. Thankfully we have treatments that are very effective.
Which SBM causes? Or are you claiming it is on the increase for reasons other than an aging population, or that NH can prevent it somehow?
Some of it caused by idiots who promote not treating UTIs, or persuade people with high blood pressure to stop their medication no doubt...
I wouldn't describe 65% as "nearly all".
That's not necessarily true. Statins are often prescribed for people at a high risk of cardiovascular disease who have been unable to lower cholesterol through diet and lifestyle changes.
Clearly. I see steadily increasing life expectancy, falling mortality from heart disease and cancer and increased disability-free life expectancy. People are getting sicker but living for longer and with less disability? Pull the other one.
Only what you want to see, clearly. They live to 150 and die in full health I suppose. It's a fantasy that any diet or lifestyle can promise health and long life. They can increase our chances of course, but there are no guarantees.
Do you see them i the emergency room when they have had a stroke, or a heart attack, or in the mortuary? How good is your follow-up? Do you monitor these patients when they have stopped the medicines their doctors have prescribed for them?
Such as? What are these miraculous changes that doctors have never heard of?
It was RCTs that told us that many of the treatments that people had been using for centuries did not work and were actively dangerous. Those treatments were used by doctors just as fanatical and sure of themselves as you are, and they were proved to be wrong.
And "common sense" has been repeatedly proved to be unreliable and dangerous in so many areas, yet there are still people like you blindly oblivious to this.
Please tell me someone is monitoring this lady's BP. Do you ever wonder about the patients you never hear from again? Do you know how many are dead or disabled?
That's a lie. There is a risk from fasting, there's a risk from any intervention that actually has any effect. You just haven't bothered keeping good enough records and following up enough patients to know what the risks or the "unquantifiable benefit" actually is. I think that is extremely irresponsible.
Didn't she write "There is only medicine that has been adequately tested and medicine that has not"? So Big Pharma has too much power, which somehow proves that all prescribed drugs are bad for you (except when they're not), fasting cures everything including rabies (except when it doesn't), smallpox virus didn't cause smallpox and anthrax spores are harmless as long as you avoid dairy?
No we don't, it has clear definitions. However you define it, disability-free life expectancy has been increasing at an accelerating pace for decades. People are living longer and they are living longer in better health. We need to deal with obesity and its consequences, and the inflammatory diseases that we have traded for infectious disease, but I'm confident we will get there. It will be through science though, not through adopting outmoded and untested fad diets and germ theory denial.
Krebiozen@790 -- and I wonder how many of the 65% of adults on medication are, like me, taking it for something minor that no lifestyle modification is going to alter. I'm on a fairly low dose of synthetic thyroid medication, and nothing that Emily or any other altmed practioner (er...excuse me..."pilot") can prescribe is going to replace it. I mean, how do fasting and positive thinking affect a thyroid imbalance?
The other medication I'm on is for hay fever, for which there certainly is a non-medical solution. Unfortunately I'm not in a position to move back to Japan right now (the only place I've ever lived where I wasn't allergic to anything), much as I'd like to.
@Calli: all I can say is that I'm coming over to your house for dinner tonight! LOL.
Your diet (and I didn't break it down bit by bit, just read your post quickly on my lunch break) looks like a nice balanced diet. Maybe a little heavy on dairy, but I don't blame you there as I am a cheese fanatic. And an omnivore also. I'm working on increasing my fruits/vegetables since I've let those slip quite a bit but after gastric banding you find what you can and can't eat, and it takes time to get back to really healthy diet. I didn't, in my quick scan, see a lot of grains but it's very possible I missed them.
Your exercise routine beats mine all holloow, though I DO use stairs as much as possible and love to walk, weather permitting. I'm not a huge fan of the cold (don't laugh, Orac, I left MI for VA and just ended up in NJ by accident....).
I also drink tons of water. Coffee in the morning, then water the rest of the day. Often WAY over the *8 glasses" recommended. Wine or a drink at dinner which lasts all evening.
Don't know what Emily might say about you and me, but I think we should live next to each other! (I make an awesome curry and last night's pepper steak experiment came out really well....)
Calli -
Thank you for your kind words about my writing. I have learned that the most efficient route to a destination is to take each step directly towards it, and that guides my approach in this sort of setting.
Well you win Lilady & Occamslaser, although I am surprised at you Occam, I never thought you would stoop so low.
Lilady, I did say your personal attacks were a sign of danger very early in the thread, ( disease vector kids/ abusive mother/neglectful mother/ etc) but I was prepared to bite the bullet & continue.
With the threat of now finding out my residence & coming with a white hood on your head just because my views differ from yours, & perhaps, as happens in our unpredictable world, inflicting some insane harm on my family, I sign off.
Good luck with your health, Calli.
I put the over-under on this one at nine hours.
Emily -
That I would stoop so low as to take the time to explain to you why you are failing to make an impression here as an honest participant in what must be a fact- and reason-based discussion?
Your reaction to what I wrote disappoints me, but sadly, it does not really surprise me. I had little hope that you would have the courage to take my observations to heart. I didn't expect you level a vague accusation at me, but I suppose that is an element of your defense mechanisms, and ties in with what I wrote earlier about your fear of truth.
The careful reader will note that I have not offered facts, nor refuted facts, and I have not expressed opinions on the various health-care approaches that have been discussed. I limited myself to probing the logic of your own claims, using only what you yourself have offered. So, I may agree with none, some, or all of what you are putting forth here, but that is of no import; you have voided any possibility of being viewed with respect because of the tactics that you have employed, so you cannot make any positive impact. Consider that thoughtfully.
I do want to repeat one of my points: your evasiveness is fatal. Specifically, you dodge like a politician when certain questions are asked of you directly. As I stated previously, when you evade a question, it is clear to all observers that you are afraid of giving a direct answer because of how it would make you, or your position, appear. Therefore, we can conclude -- even if you do not answer -- that the answer would undermine your position. Every time you choose not to answer a question, you are therefore answering it nonetheless. The examples are too numerous to list; I'm sure you are aware of them.
Perhaps, when you have some time for quiet reflection, you can assemble those questions and ask them of yourself. And give yourself honest answers. Then, see if you have the courage to deal with those answers. I wish you well.
@796 Occamslaser
I think she's referring to your 'stooping' in regards to her identity. On the whole though I agree with the sentiments of your comment.
@782 Denice
I'll agree with this. My own experience with meds wasn't enjoyable, and as one person put it to me makes you feel like "a slice of bland white bread". The side effect of dampening one's extreme moods also had the annoying habit of making me feel tuned out to myself. Like I was a bit of a zombie. It takes a while to get the right med at the right dosage, and watching someone turn up one day high as a kite, we realised that the doctors had tried a different dosage and the result was both hilarious and slightly disturbing. It's also hard to convert someone who is normally lethargic into someone who can stick to a daily plan of med-taking.
Although the experiences I've had, and what I've seen with others, hasn't been ideal, I do understand that SBM works for many many people; and if I were more inclined I'd try again myself. I certainly wouldn't go and take some random 'herbal' that has no proven efficacy, but I totally understand how some people could fall for some of the CAM claims given how tricky medications can be in this area.
@784 Squirrelelite
Yeah I think most of my comments aren't directed at her either. Or at least, halfway through the become less directed at her.
@772 Occamslaser
Thank you for posting that. Great comment!
This should be highlighted:
Because that's exactly one of the reasons why Wakefield was struck off.
@790 Krebiozen
This is one of the things that bug me about Weight Watchers, etc. They always advertise normal people endorsing these diets, but I think the only reason they end up losing weight is because they are *committed* to exercising and eating well. In other words, they put in the effort to change, and it's not really the special meals that make them lose weight.
I'd bet it's the same with much of the Natural Hygiene stuff too; that is, for simple self-limited things, it works for those who are committed to change.
Does she make them go cold turkey?
There's a risk to anything. That Emily doesn't seem to understand that suggests that she's even more stupid than I thought. Or a liar. Or both.
@794 Emily
Your flounce took longer than predicted. Goom-bye and good riddance!
Weight Watchers is pretty much a calorie-counting system with a marketing department grafted on. This runs counter to Natural Hygiene; Shelton only grudgingly admitted restrictive toxin-eliminating diets over fasts, in that any halfway privation was doomed as a vehicle to the truth (although perhaps an adequate intermediate step) in its encouraging craving, which is the hallmark of a stimulant, which drains nerve energy. You're really just supposed to sip water in a pastoral environment if something ails you.*
* Not to be taken to suggest the existence of "disease," or "cures," or "treatments."
Emily may have gone, but others who may be interested in a very recent article about the possible benefits of periodic fasting on cardiovascular health and metabolic disorders.
http://www.futuremedicine.com/doi/full/10.2217/fca.11.50
A few relevant quotes:
Interesting, but I don't think I'll be adopting Natural Hygiene principles just yet. If this does live up to its promise the next problem is persuading unmotivated, overweight, depressed people to fast regularly.
Has anyone ever linked to this negligence case?
http://openjurist.org/722/f2d/203/moore-carlton-v-m-shelton-v
This negligence case sought damages for the widow and survivors of William Carlton who starved to death while under the care of Dr. Virginia Vetrano who "cared" for William Carlton during his stay at the Shelton Health School.
Reading through the case, we see that Mr. Carlton placed himself under Dr. Vetrano's care for treatment of a bowel problem. Dr. Vetrano didn't "monitor" Mr. Carlton for days on end (up to four days between "monitoring") while he was starving and while he was permitted only two cups of distilled water each day.
Of particular note is the Medical Examiner's Report and the finding of gross negligence in Mr. Carlton's death and the death of three other patients, while under Dr. Vetrano's "care".
Dr. Vetrano is still practicing as a "hygienist".
@ flip:
Getting meds right can take trial and error; the problem is that some people without meds suffer needlessly and wind up wasting years of their lives just trying to keep their heads above water. I have no idea what category you fall into- thus depression is a frustrating conditions for doctors as well. Here are a few anecdotes ( non-clients):
J had bouts of bulumia was diagnosed as bi-polar took lithium and gained a great deal of weight. She later found a doctor who said that she was mis-diagnosed- she was truly depressed -which fit the family profile: new meds and weight loss.
A person was given very mild amitripyline with a tranquiliser for 'anxious depression' to spectacular results.
A guy with severe depression felt "snowed under" by the standard meds but was greatly helped by a benzodiazapine. However, he also liked expensive hootch- which can be a problem- but I ask myself how much of this would be self-medicating and how much is actually that he just liked liquor- he always worked, no real problems, got less depressed with age.
Another fellow found a sideline career after retirement never took any meds for depression.
While my examples are in no way representative- they're anecdotes, people I know - they're diverse. I don't know what the solution is for you: I suppose it depends on *how* badly you feel. I would suggest that you do wide reading across the lit about meds and reactions as well as CBT. Your intelligence will guide you but realise that sometimes things can get beyond our personal control and you might *someday*- altho' I hope never- need outside help.
Flip -
You may be correct. I would point out to Emily that her suspicious failure to be forthcoming and honest about her financial interest in the therapies she was pushing were what motivated me to try to fill in that glaring hole in her presentation here. If she had simply said something like, "I have a degree in nutrition, and I have been running a Natural Hygiene and fasting clinic for many years, and we give seminars, and I would like to share with you the principles I have used and the observations I have made as to the efficacy of our approach," there would not have been the lingering questions about her affiliation, background, and financial interests.
I would further note that I have not revealed Emily's identity or any other identifying information, and when another poster thought she had identified Emily's place of employ, I took care to communicate that I thought she was mistaken in a manner that did not expose Emily in any way. I will mention, however, that the likely reasons behind Emily's evasiveness on her position on certain topics are made clear by the knowledge of her situation. I will leave it to her to elaborate if she so chooses.
I do have something I'd like to add to the list of matters I would urge Emily to think about. She has written the following statements:
Emily, if you do not have an opinion on whether our bodies have developed all these wonderful systems in which you have so much faith via the mechanism of evolution...
...who, then, was the "intelligent designer" of our bodies?
Emily,
Thank you. I do believe you say that with the best of spirits, and I accept it that way. Good luck with yours as well; may you live a long and fruitful life.
I am sorry you feel so threatened; I don't think many hear agree with "outing" you or contacting your employer. It doesn't matter. I don't think you need to be afraid of anyone here, particularly OccasmLaser. He may have worked out who you are, but I think the important message in that is that it's easier than people realize to pierce layers of anonymity, and so we shouldn't put much stock in it. I'm taking you at face value; I'm not going to go and try to find out whether your various personal claims are accurate. It's not important; as far as I'm concerned, we may as well be speaking entirely in hypotheticals. That's freeing in a sense, because it allows us to judge claims entirely on their merits.
I wonder, is that why you are now leaving? I gave a considerable amount of personal information above; enough to greatly assist anyone wanting to "out" me, certainly. The hope was to find out how you use that sort of information. At this point, it seems rather as if you don't actually care about that information. You zeroed in on the diet even though there were plenty of useful clues to my condition in the rest of it. Hydration has a relationship to UTIs; diet generally does not unless it's secondary to bladder stones or something like that. More important are gender, personal hygiene, bathroom habits, and, in my case, anatomy. You could also have inquired about sexual practices, though I would probably not have shared much there; that's between me and my husband. ;-) You did not explore any of those, and your response to my diet consisted of what could only have been a rhetorical question to whether the other commenters approved of it. I am forced to conclude, as others have, that you do not actually care about the details. You collect the details so you appear to be working hard, but in the end, give only vague recommendations that are too nonspecific to have any relationship to the data collected. You have given no reason to think you do any real followup; you may see the patient again, but you're not tracking the specific condition. You have given no reason to think you perform any real diagnostics; you may have "piloted" hundreds of women who believed they had UTIs, but you have no way of knowing whether they actually did; consequently, your anecdotal data about curing UTIs by natural hygeine is worthless even to you, and you do not realize it. You have no way of knowing if it even works, yet you keep doing it, encouraging others to do it, and profiting off of this. You are, in short, no better than Burzynski or the dubious practitioners who have followed in Wakefield's footsteps. You may be better than Wakefield; I am not convinced you're intentionally defrauding anyone. I think you really believe what you're saying. You are exactly like the bloodletters 200 years ago; you see no evidence it's not working, and you see no reason to look further, valiantly soldiering on while people die around you. Seriously; they were actually killing people with their treatments, and they were completely unaware. They weren't stupid, but they were arrogant enough to trust in their own intuition.
Open your mind sometime, Emily. The experience will be rewarding, though perhaps a bit painful at first.
@799 Narad
Not to mention Weight Watchers doesn't mind if you eat melons with nuts...
@802 Denice
I agree with you; my point was that one can get frustrated easily and without any knowledge of medicine can quickly fall into the path of CAM concepts. Which wastes even more time.
As for me: one of the reasons why I am not particularly enthused with my experiences with mental health treatment was the lack of assistance. Basically the only psychiatry I met with was in hospital (for mental health problems), and the doctor on call was patronising to the point of dismissive. No official diagnosis was made - perhaps 'social anxiety', but as I say, it was dismissive - and meds was offered but very little done to explain how it worked/side effects/risks, and was pushed far more than counselling was. Although blood tests were recommended (for what I can't recall now) they were never done. Suffice to say that I didn't appreciate the minimal assistance I received. I understand the lack of support mental health gets, as well as the overall problems facing what amounts to emergency psychiatry, but it didn't impress on me the feeling that anyone cared or thought I was more depressed than your average shy person.
One of the reasons why I've been reluctant to seek help from someone else is the problem of finding someone who I feel comfortable with and who won't patronise me. I know I should probably do something proper about it, but with so many other things to worry about I just put it off. Financially speaking, I can't afford to go and 'interview' a bunch of doctors to find one I'm happy with.
As I previously mentioned, some of my depression is 'situational', and so working to improve finances or other such things does actually reduce the impact of my illness and makes things easier to manage anyway. Having said that, my illness is by no means a mild one, and I do seek help when I do need it (the above trip to the hospital was voluntary and at my request; although I was out of it enough to require assistance walking, and though I had no obvious signs of it, I did try to kill myself). I do think I probably need more support - family and friends not really doing much to help - but as I say there are other things that make me reluctant to do so. Frankly if I were able to reveal my identity, I could speak more on the other issues that make this reluctance so strong.
... This also harps back to my point that if Emily thinks I'm in love with SBM to the point of being blinded to its faults, she's an idiot. And the reason why I got so annoyed at the victim blaming aspect, as even with trained professionals in mental health I have had to struggle for them to take the depth of my problem seriously.
Furthermore, instead of complaining about the above problems with mental health care as Emily does about SBM, I got involved: when a study from a local university occured on issues in current mental health care settings, I volunteered, told them everything, and hoped that it would impact on future improvements.
PS. I'd like to say a big thanks for talking about this stuff with me. I generally keep it all to my chest, at least where specifics are concerned, and this is one of the few times I've openly talked about it online. I feel comfortable to do so, and it's quite relieving to do it. Very few people know the details, though if this is what ends up revealing my identity, I think I'm ok with that: improving information and understanding towards mental health is a good cause to lose it to.
@ flip:
First of all about pseudonyms: I'd retain anonymity - even if I had another project- a film, an article, a blog, a newsletter- under my own name, I'd try to keep it separate: I do; so do our esteemed host and his "friend", that surgeon guy. There's too much harassment and legal shenanigans engendered by 'net feuds.
On self-help: we're all *works in progress*- humans have the capacity to work on themselves. We can use (inner) speech to self-regulate our lives and feelings and internalise help from others et al. We can rehearse -while alone- what we'll say to others: writing is a form of rehearsal as well as communication. You can learn how to be at ease with others- s-l-o-w-ly - step by step ( Why not?) figure out how to speak, act, carry yourself with more *aplomb* ( I like that word!) Wm James wrote about acting 'as if' you were fine ( even if you weren't)- sometimes you will actually feel better**. And others will often then re-act to *that* image. My father always said that we both were rewarded for how we looked, spoke, and behaved *not* necessarily because of how we *were*. I'm not saying to be false.
Having good verbal skills and an ability for abstraction has more than half the battle won. Although self-image can be manipulated, social skills can be more finely honed, voices can be developed: the cognitive always rests upon a substrate of biology- we can't escape that.
** talk about depressive families, Wm and Henry!
I'd like to talk about the issue of anonymity further, but actually I realised what I want to say would give a bit of it away ;)
But yes, keeping them separate is what I plan on doing.
Although I have a little social anxiety, it's nothing I couldn't deal with: which was why I got pissed off at the doctor. Suggesting social anxiety classes and temporary meds came along with the distinct attitude that I was over-reacting to the seriousness of the situation. Given that this was basically *the* cry for help after receiving none for 10 years, I find the idea that I just need to "get out into the world more" a bit rude. Particularly, as I said, I'm proactive and had a life where I did spend a lot of time amongst other people.
Anyway, I get what you're saying and wish that the majority of those sorts of things worked for me: being occupied in something I enjoy works the best.
Mr Wakefield is at it again. At the European parliament in Brussels http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_czhdiEfgUw