Gardasil

[karvala]

Why does something have to be published in a mainstream medical journal to have merit?

 

It needs to be published in a reputable peer-reviewed journal so that the merit of the article can be verified by a number of independent experts, and the quality is assured by competing against the best that other eminent authors have to offer. As opposed to any clown with an agenda who can stick something on his website and call it science. EDIT: I should add, if it makes you feel any better, that this cuts both ways. I wouldn't believe any "scientific" article without peer review that was published on a drug manufacturer's website either.

 

Lots of people here tell me stuff they know diddly about but I still listen and think they might have merit.

 

Well you said it, not me.

[Seraphim]

Well you said it, not me.

 

No, I said they had merit. No semantics play needed.

 

Mainstream medicine should try listening sometimes to other's opinions.

[jenny_mcs]

No, I said they had merit. No semantics play needed.

 

Mainstream medicine should try listening sometimes to other's opinions.

 

I don't want mainstream medicine to listen to OPINIONS. I want cold, hard facts.

[IphigeniaSaysHi]

I don't want mainstream medicine to listen to OPINIONS. I want cold, hard facts.

 

Right? Opinions are emotional, facts are based on outcomes. Emotions have no place in determining the efficacy of medications, unfortunately.

[annie24]

yeah, it's not about opinions, it's about data and facts!!!!

[Seraphim]

I don't want mainstream medicine to listen to OPINIONS. I want cold, hard facts.

 

Does mainstream medicine always have to cold hard facts??? Do you know how many times I have been told.......I do not know, but maybe it is this.....

and maybe we should try this..........

 

So any scientist who wants to debunk all the other literature and science out there emperically and diffinatively to me I will listen.

[arsenal]

Does mainstream medicine always have to cold hard facts??? Do you know how many times I have been told.......I do not know, but maybe it is this.....

and maybe we should try this..........

 

So any scientist who wants to debunk all the other literature and science out there emperically and diffinatively to me I will listen.

 

Mainstream science always has the best evidence to support its ideas. They are sometimes proven wrong, when better evidence comes out later.

[annie24]

you want someone to come and debunk everything scientists have figured out in the last 5000 years??? huh?

 

i'm sorry that you've had frustrations with doctors and medicine. i have too, when i've had something and the doctor doesn't know what i have. the way how lab science and how patient care medicine operate is completely different though. in a lab, i have all the time in the world to properly assemble my experiments, my controls, my cell lines, etc.... this is different than when someone is at the doctor's office with a rash, etc....

 

this is part of why peer-review is so important. i may say, i got x,y,and z results, therefore, this is my conclusion. and then some other scientist says, 'well, i don't know if you interpreted those results correctly, we won't publish this work until you get some more experiments done and account for this ......'

 

i can't just say i got this result and that's that. we are all keeping each other honest.

[Seraphim]

Mainstream science always has the best evidence to support its ideas. They are sometimes proven wrong, when better evidence comes out later.

 

SO because many traditional medicines have not been studied they are wrong? All the medicines coming from plants throughout the world are wrong too cause they have not been studied? Anything not studied by a mainstream scientist is wrong?

[karvala]

No, I said they had merit. No semantics play needed.

 

Exactly, you said they didn't know what they were talking about, and you found them convincing. What does that tell you?

 

Mainstream medicine should try listening sometimes to other's opinions.

 

Who are the "others" here? Unless you're going to beg the question by defining "mainstream" and "others" in terms of your beliefs, in which case you would have to rephrase that "people who say things I don't believe should start listening to people who say things I do believe", then I don't know who you're referring to. You seem to believe that this is an exclusive medical establishment, a sort of club with a defined and limited membership, who dictate mainstream medical opinion, and anyone outside the club is not heard. In actual fact, there is no club. You could write and submit an article to Nature if you like; there is nothing stopping you. So can Alan Phillips, or anyone else who believes that vaccines are harmful. The article will be reviewed and judged by the same criteria as any other article: the interest of the subject, the logical consistency of the argument, the quality of the data, the clarity of the writing and the originality of the finding. The reason these marginal views are not found in such hallowed pages is precisely because the arguments don't stand up to scrutiny. I could give the article that ToV linked earlier to my grad students for review, and they would each come back with at least 20 things wrong with it in quality terms. It's not that the view is not mainstream, it's that the science is badly done. That's why I invited you earlier to make your case to us; I am open to persuaian, but on scientific grounds. I'm not open to arguments like "it's all a conspiracy", "oh those evil drug companies make too much money", "mainstream medicine never listens to anyone" or the like, because these are (a) not supported by any evidence and (b) not scientific.

[Seraphim]

There are MANY medical ideas that existed long before mainstream medicine. Has it all been studied? No. Is it without a doubt wrong NO.

[greywolf]

SO because many traditional medicines have not been studied they are wrong? All the medicines coming from plants throughout the world are wrong too cause they have not been studied? Anything not studied by a mainstream scientist is wrong?

 

No one said it was wrong. You are twisting people's words. The point was that if there is a lot of evidence to support a certain idea, there's a good chance that it's correct.

[arsenal]

SO because many traditional medicines have not been studied they are wrong? All the medicines coming from plants throughout the world are wrong too cause they have not been studied? Anything not studied by a mainstream scientist is wrong?

 

Traditional medicine could be wrong or they could be right. You can do scientific studies on traditional healing methods and if they found to be more effective than doing no treatment, it can come apart of mainstream medicine. If the scientific studies show that it isn't any more effective than a placebo, than it probably is wrong.

 

And a lot of drugs are derived from plants all over the world and there are probably many that are undiscovered.

[Seraphim]

I give them opportunity to be listened to. I may not believe a thing they have to say, however it does not make them wrong and I do not tell them they are stupid either.

 

As I have said I am not a scientist, but just because you are I am not necessarily going to believe everything you tell me either.

[tiredofvampires]

Curious, as you rightly cite the importance of peer-review and reputable journals here, that you chose to recommend an online article written by an "independent" (aka unemployed) researcher, that was not peer reviewed at all and clearly wasn't publishable in ANY journal.

 

You're right -- I do not have good access to the actual peer-reviewed articles themselves, only the citations of other articles in the annotated bibliography. And the reason for this is that as a layperson, to find these articles online I'd have to pay individually for each article in said journals. Something I don't have the money for right now, for purposes of this thread. I do have doctors though who have scrupulously pointed to these same references.

 

So I guess you could say I've not been immaculately first-hand here. And that since I don't have a review of this person's article, and have not presented it in the context of a meta-analysis, that might mean the content requires verification.

 

I'm somewhat trusting the veracity of the footnotes, combined with all the other articles I've read and professional opinions I've heard, using this as a rough sample.

 

Do you dispute these data, karv?

[karvala]

There are MANY medical ideas that existed long before mainstream medicine. Has it all been studied? No. Is it without a doubt wrong NO.

 

Is it without a doubt right? No. How do we tell which ones are right and which ones aren't? By studying it scientifically and interpreting the results without any predetermined agenda.

 

If you have a particular example of a traditional remedy which you think has great value and widespread use, but which you are sure has never been scientifically investigated, by all means provide us with the details here. I'm certainly not ruling out the possibility that there are such cases, but none immediately come to mind.

[Seraphim]

Is it without a doubt right? No. How do we tell which ones are right and which ones aren't? By studying it scientifically and interpreting the results without any predetermined agenda.

 

If you have a particular example of a traditional remedy which you think has great value and widespread use, but which you are sure has never been scientifically investigated, by all means provide us with the details here. I'm certainly not ruling out the possibility that there are such cases, but none immediately come to mind.

 

Mainstream medicine and medications and vaccines are propogandized out the window, but it is "studied".

[annie24]

What does "studied" mean to you in quotation marks? You think these results are made up or something?

[annie24]

exactly, brilliantly said, karvala.

 

I do have friends who are studying the link between vaccines and diseases. I asked one friend if they found a link between autism and vaccines and she easily said 'no.' of course, we should look towards the literature for the evidence, not just anecdotes.

[IphigeniaSaysHi]

exactly, brilliantly said, karvala.

 

I do have friends who are studying the link between vaccines and diseases. I asked one friend if they found a link between autism and vaccines and she easily said 'no.' of course, we should look towards the literature for the evidence, not just anecdotes.

 

This is really what it was all about. Of course, people are going to look for any connection they can to understand the disease. Unfortunately, vaccines took the blame for autism and people started questioning the safety of vaccines and condemning them.

[annie24]

however, she did tell me about a link between autism and one factor that they did find. i don't want to post it here because i don't know if they've published their result.

 

nevermind. has been published. the link between autism and having an older father.

[sophie274]

 

nevermind. has been published. the link between autism and having an older father.

 

Didn't you see the triumphant piece in the NYTimes, written by a woman? "Ha, men, you DO have a biological clock after all. Take that. No more children into your 70s". LOL

[karvala]

Depends which data you're referring to. Data are open to interpretation, and with the enormous quantity of scientific literature published these days, you end up with bible-quote situation, i.e. you can find something to ostensibly support just about any predetermined position if you try hard enough. That's why peer-review of the actual article itself (not just the articles it cites) by several independent experts is so important. If there are flaws in its arguments, or misrepresentations of cited data, or most misleadingly of all in this case, simply vast swathes of highly relevant literature that are cheerfully ignored, resulting in something blatantly one-sided and pursuing a predetermined agenda, then these would be picked up in the review process.

 

To give you one example, just starting at the beginning of the article, myth no.1: the author gives the figures of vaccine-related deaths that are reported to the FDA each year. Within a few paragraphs, for the pertussis vaccine, this has metamorphosed into "the number of vaccine-related deaths". Apparently, the author believes that all reports to the FDA are 100% accurate at the time of reporting, and that the FDA need not even bother to investigate. That in contrast to the fact that no investigation has yet found a single death caused by the pertussis vaccine, a rather important fact that the author chose to omit. Why? Because it completely undermines his argument, and he'd rather deceive you than present you with all the relevant facts and let you make an informed choice. My grad students would pick this up quickly, and so would any decent peer reviewer. I'm quite sure the author knew this, which is doubtless why he chose to stick it on his website and avoid any scrutiny of these arguments.

 

I could waste a couple of hours picking up a hundred points like that, but I'll refrain. Instead, I will say that I agree it's lamentable that most scientific medical research is not available to the general public (and not even all of it to researchers in the field either!). It is slowly improving, and PubMed (link removed) have an increasing number of freely available full-text articles, and include an increasing number of new, free, reputable journals, so there is some material available for the viewing. Authors websites/institutions are good places to look as well. It's far from ideal, though, I do agree.

[karvala]

however, she did tell me about a link between autism and one factor that they did find. i don't want to post it here because i don't know if they've published their result.

 

nevermind. has been published. the link between autism and having an older father.

 

Goodness, that is interesting. Did they have any idea what the mechanism might be?

[EQD]

 

Carefully selected epidemiological studies are yet another justification for vaccination programs. However, many of these may not be legitimate sources from which to draw conclusions about vaccine effectiveness. For example, if 100 people are vaccinated and 5 contract the disease, the vaccine is declared to be 95% effective. But if only 10 of the 100 were actually exposed to the disease, then the vaccine was really only 50% effective. Since no one is willing to directly expose an entire population to disease--even a fully vaccinated one--vaccine effectiveness rates may not indicate a vaccine's true effectiveness.

 

 

this is absolutely brilliant and what i was talking about in the first place.