Re: CSAnecdotal versus laboratory testing methods
indi wrote: On Mon, 20 Oct 2008 12:29:47 +0100 Dee d...@deetroy.org wrote: In fact, your question is surely more relevant to most of us. Unfortunately, clinical double-blind studies are expensive to conduct, and most of them are financed by companies who make their money from patent medicines, or researchers working with grant money, so they have a powerful incentive to skew the results of these studies (it's either re-qualify for the grant money or get this product approved), and also often to avoid head-to-head comparisons of (for example) CS and vancomycin. But the corruption rampant in the pharmaceutical industry should not be read as an indictment of scientific method. The problem is Big Pharma doing science theater rather than real science. For instance the clinical studies *did* catch the big problems with Vioxx, and the manufacturer simply covered it up. This sort of thing happens all the time in the pharmaceutical industry. So perhaps it is not unreasonable to consider anecdotal evidence more trustworthy than information from the FDA or Upjohn, but it's still not as reliable as the scientific method. That correlation does not imply causation has been more than adequately proven. OTOH, where there is smoke there is fire does work a lot of times, too. :) A very good example of this, with full FDA support, is the formulating of the control. Every wonder why they often report some bad side effect of a drug, and then claim that occurance with the medicine is no greater than it is with a sugar pill. Reason is that it is a lie. They don't test with a sugar pill normally. Instead the companies are allowed to formulate the placebo to make it supposedly indistinguishable from what is being tested. Then the FDA allows the company to call it a sugar pill, suggesting that the average person is too dumb to know what a control or placebo is. So the placebo will not only mimic the color and texture of the medicine, but they will add compounds to cause the same side effects. For instance, lets say that they know that the drug causes nausea in some people. Then they would add something, like syrup of ipecac, to make the placebo nauseate as well. This does make some sense for a double blind study, where you do not want the person to have any hint of which is the drug, and which is the placebo. But there are two problems with this. First they often add stuff that makes the condition worse. Lets say they are testing a medicine for headaches. But it can also cause stomach upsets. So they add something that not only causes nausea but headaches as well. The the final result will be that the medicine, even if it does absolutely nothing, will from the placebo effect or even no effect, score higher than the placebo, which is formulated to cause the actual problem that the medicine suppose to cure. Then according to FDA rules, instead of advertising that their medicine worked better and had fewer side effects than their placebo of say rat poison, they are allowed to say it performed better with less side effects than a sugar pill. Of course they never make this claim for diabetes medicine, for them they say a control or placebo; it seems that diabetics are the only group the FDA believes knows what a control or placebo is. Marshall -- The Silver List is a moderated forum for discussing Colloidal Silver. Instructions for unsubscribing are posted at: http://silverlist.org To post, address your message to: silver-list@eskimo.com Address Off-Topic messages to: silver-off-topic-l...@eskimo.com The Silver List and Off Topic List archives are currently down... List maintainer: Mike Devour mdev...@eskimo.com
Re: CSAnecdotal versus laboratory testing methods
Scary, isn't it? dee Marshall Dudley wrote: i Then according to FDA rules, instead of advertising that their medicine worked better and had fewer side effects than their placebo of say rat poison, they are allowed to say it performed better with less side effects than a sugar pill. Of course they never make this claim for diabetes medicine, for them they say a control or placebo; it seems that diabetics are the only group the FDA believes knows what a control or placebo is. Marshall -- -- The Silver List is a moderated forum for discussing Colloidal Silver. Instructions for unsubscribing are posted at: http://silverlist.org To post, address your message to: silver-list@eskimo.com Address Off-Topic messages to: silver-off-topic-l...@eskimo.com The Silver List and Off Topic List archives are currently down... List maintainer: Mike Devour mdev...@eskimo.com
CSAnecdotal versus laboratory testing methods
I had a thought about this. Didn't the latter come about because it became somewhat 'undesirable' to test things actually on people? In the early days when things like bella donna and arsenic were used, they must have tested the doses on people in order to decide what were the beneficial amounts to take, mustn't they? I presume the poor were used as they would have been expendable in those dark times, as they were used for a lot of experimentation. By this thinking, I would have thought that anecdotal evidence and experience, should be superior to laboratory testing because the results are irrefutable. There are too many variables in laboratory tests to be accurate when it comes to people actually *using* stuff. Take Vioxx for example, and Thalidomide. *They* were presumably laboratory tested, but look at the disasters caused when given to people! Just a notion. dee -- The Silver List is a moderated forum for discussing Colloidal Silver. Instructions for unsubscribing are posted at: http://silverlist.org To post, address your message to: silver-list@eskimo.com Address Off-Topic messages to: silver-off-topic-l...@eskimo.com The Silver List and Off Topic List archives are currently down... List maintainer: Mike Devour mdev...@eskimo.com
Re: CSAnecdotal versus laboratory testing methods
On Mon, 20 Oct 2008 12:29:47 +0100 Dee d...@deetroy.org wrote: I had a thought about this. Didn't the latter come about because it became somewhat 'undesirable' to test things actually on people? In the early days when things like bella donna and arsenic were used, they must have tested the doses on people in order to decide what were the beneficial amounts to take, mustn't they? I presume the poor were used as they would have been expendable in those dark times, as they were used for a lot of experimentation. By this thinking, I would have thought that anecdotal evidence and experience, should be superior to laboratory testing because the results are irrefutable. There are too many variables in laboratory tests to be accurate when it comes to people actually *using* stuff. Take Vioxx for example, and Thalidomide. *They* were presumably laboratory tested, but look at the disasters caused when given to people! Just a notion. dee I believe you are addressing the question can a laboratory model make accurate predictions about the effect of a given substance on a human body? (to which the answer is, of course, once in a blue moon:)). That is a very different question from what is the exact chemical composition of a given substance and how does it behave over time?. In fact, your question is surely more relevant to most of us. Unfortunately, clinical double-blind studies are expensive to conduct, and most of them are financed by companies who make their money from patent medicines, or researchers working with grant money, so they have a powerful incentive to skew the results of these studies (it's either re-qualify for the grant money or get this product approved), and also often to avoid head-to-head comparisons of (for example) CS and vancomycin. But the corruption rampant in the pharmaceutical industry should not be read as an indictment of scientific method. The problem is Big Pharma doing science theater rather than real science. For instance the clinical studies *did* catch the big problems with Vioxx, and the manufacturer simply covered it up. This sort of thing happens all the time in the pharmaceutical industry. So perhaps it is not unreasonable to consider anecdotal evidence more trustworthy than information from the FDA or Upjohn, but it's still not as reliable as the scientific method. That correlation does not imply causation has been more than adequately proven. OTOH, where there is smoke there is fire does work a lot of times, too. :) Just my $.02... indi -- The Silver List is a moderated forum for discussing Colloidal Silver. Instructions for unsubscribing are posted at: http://silverlist.org To post, address your message to: silver-list@eskimo.com Address Off-Topic messages to: silver-off-topic-l...@eskimo.com The Silver List and Off Topic List archives are currently down... List maintainer: Mike Devour mdev...@eskimo.com
Re: CSAnecdotal versus laboratory testing methods
Yes this corruption was highlighted when the tobacco industries (who funded the trials) told us all that tobacco was actually *good* for us! dee indi wrote: On Mon, 20 Oct 2008 12:29:47 +0100 Dee d...@deetroy.org wrote: In fact, your question is surely more relevant to most of us. Unfortunately, clinical double-blind studies are expensive to conduct, and most of them are financed by companies who make their money from patent medicines, or researchers working with grant money, so they have a powerful incentive to skew the results of these studies (it's either re-qualify for the grant money or get this product approved), and also often to avoid head-to-head comparisons of (for example) CS and vancomycin. But the corruption rampant in the pharmaceutical industry should not be read as an indictment of scientific method. The problem is Big Pharma doing science theater rather than real science. For instance the clinical studies *did* catch the big problems with Vioxx, and the manufacturer simply covered it up. This sort of thing happens all the time in the pharmaceutical industry. So perhaps it is not unreasonable to consider anecdotal evidence more trustworthy than information from the FDA or Upjohn, but it's still not as reliable as the scientific method. -- The Silver List is a moderated forum for discussing Colloidal Silver. Instructions for unsubscribing are posted at: http://silverlist.org To post, address your message to: silver-list@eskimo.com Address Off-Topic messages to: silver-off-topic-l...@eskimo.com The Silver List and Off Topic List archives are currently down... List maintainer: Mike Devour mdev...@eskimo.com
