--- On Wed, 12/1/10, Con Menezes <cmene...@tpg.com.au> wrote: > > http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dana-ullman/how-scientific-> is-modern_b_543158.html >
This article on the Huffington Post political website was posted several months ago by Gilbert. At that time this is what I had written: MY QUOTE It looks like Huffington Post has become a full-fledged dishonest pseudoscientific operation. How embarrassing that a silly diatribe from a publicist and salesman for homeopathy is posted as a serious article questioning the scientific nature of modern medicine? MY UNQUOTE Please see - http://www.mail-archive.com/goanet@lists.goanet.org/msg60565.html I had also exposed the fact that most of the claims made in the article in question were entirely bogus. Here is what I had written: MY QUOTE That his article is a silly diatribe against modern medicine is obvious. Despite its title it says nothing about science, and nothing about what is meant by scientific. The whole thing is simply a transparent assault on the motives and sincerity of doctors, other mainstream medical professionals and the medical establishment as a whole. Here are some pertinent quotes: QUOTE Despite the truly massive amounts of money that doctors, hospitals and drug companies are effectively extracting from patients, employers, insurance companies and governments, we are certainly not getting our money's worth. UNQUOTE ....Dana Ullman QUOTE Although modern physicians may point their collective finger at various "alternative" or "natural" treatment modalities as examples of quackery, it is conventional medical treatments today that are out-of-this-world expensive, and despite real questionable efficacy of their treatments, doctors give patients the guise of "science." UNQUOTE ....Dana Ullman It is clear that because of his self-interest in homeopathy ("an "alternative" treatment modality" in his words), all he has is a personal grudge against doctors, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, etc. This has nothing to do with science. If he cared so much about a discipline being scientific then he would have demanded that homeopathic principles and practices be subjected to the same rigors of self-critical scientific inquiry as modern medicine is, which he has never done. If anything, his idea of science or the state of being scientific appears to be exactly the opposite of what it is supposed to be, to allow special exemption for homeopathy. Above all, the fact that his entire case is a sham, fraught with dishonesty, is also evident from the fact that he has deliberately falsified or twisted facts from the following BMJ Clinical Evidence blog item, which is his principal reference in his diatribe: http://clinicalevidence.bmj.com/ceweb/about/knowledge.jsp Here are his false statements: 1. "Eight percent were as likely to be harmful as beneficial" .....Dana Ullman The truth from the BMJ blog is 8% represents a "trade-off between benefits and harm" 2. "46 percent were unknown whether they were efficacious or harmful" .....Dana Ullman The truth from the BMJ blog is 49% are of "unknown effectiveness". There is no mention of them being harmful in the latter category. Here is how the BMJ blog defines this category: "Unknown effectiveness - For which there are currently insufficient data or data of inadequate quality." ....BMJ Clinical Evidence Blog Please see: http://clinicalevidence.bmj.com/ceweb/about/guide.jsp To get a sense of what this means, if BMJ Clinical Evidence criteria are applied to homeopathy or any other alternative to modern scientific medicine, more than 80% of their treatments would fall under the "Unknown effectiveness" category, and all of the rest under "Likely to be ineffective" category. Please note that BMJ is only considering hard evidence published in peer-reviewed medical literature. So testimonials, grandmother's stories and opinion editorials do not count. MY UNQUOTE Please see - http://www.mail-archive.com/goanet@lists.goanet.org/msg60570.html In addition to the above, I had also refuted another bogus statistical claim in the article. Here it is: MY QUOTE QUOTE Although we are commonly told that we are living longer than ever now, this is simply a clever, even tricky, use of statistics. The fact of the matter is that there has been a considerable reduction in deaths during the first five years of life ... and this reduction in deaths has resulted primarily from a medicinal agent called "soap," not from the use of any specific conventional pharmaceutical agent. Ultimately, an American who was 40 years old in 1900 and an American who was 40 years old in 1960 has a similar chance of living to 80 years old today. UNQUOTE .......Dana Ullman Please see: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dana-ullman/how-scientific-is-modern_b_543158.html Talk about stupid and fraudulent use of statistics. Please note how he makes claims about the "first five years of life" and the situation "now", but then turns around and provides massaged statistical facts for age 40 years and the year 1960. The truth is that life expectancy at age 40 in 1900 was 68 years . In 2004 it had increased to 79 years. In 1960, when modern medicine had still not become fully scientific the life expectancy at age 40 had increased to 72 years. But more importantly given his bogus claims regarding soap in the first five years of life, the life expectancy at age 5 years has increased from 58 years in 1900 to 78 years in 2000. This is important because this progress can be entirely accounted for by scientific progress in modern medicine. The unscientific garbage of homeopathy has remained totally stagnant in that time. It is virtually unchanged since Hahneman. MY UNQUOTE Cheers, Santosh