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fegmaniax-digest       Wednesday, July 29 2009       Volume 17 : Number 206



                               Today's Subjects:
                               -----------------
  Re: "Follow The Money"            ["Stewart C. Russell" <scruss@gmail.com>]
  Re: "Follow The Money"                 [Christopher Gross <chrisg@gwu.edu>]
  Conan Tonight!                                 [Tom Clark <tclark@mac.com>]
  Re: Shatner reciting Palin's farewell speech  [Steve Schiavo <steveschiavo]
  RE: "Follow The Money"                 ["Brian Huddell" <bhuddell@cox.net>]
  Re: like you're dying to know what i got to-day... (US division,  most  likely)  [Sebastian Hagedorn <Hagedorn@spinfo.uni-k]
  Re: Spo-dee-o-dee (wine, wine)          [Jeremy Osner <anacreon@gmail.com>]
  Re: hot synths!                                [jeffb@plannedbrokerage.com]
  RE: "Follow The Money"                 [Christopher Gross <chrisg@gwu.edu>]
  Re: "Follow The Money"             ["Nectar At Any Cost!" <etews@inwa.net>]
  Re: "Follow The Money"                      [2fs <jeffreyw2fs.j@gmail.com>]
  Re: "Follow The Money"                     [Marc <malberts1@earthlink.net>]

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2009 23:41:13 -0400
From: "Stewart C. Russell" <scruss@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: "Follow The Money"

Marc wrote:
> 
> If there were justice, jokers like Wakefield and Jenny McCarthy would
>  be sentence to slow and painful death over and over again

Actually, no, I wouldn't want that - if only because it's very close to
what litigious vitamin-pill-cure-for-AIDS pusher Anthony Brink (former
employee of Matthias Rath) wanted for Zackie Achmat.
CAUTION NASTY STUFF FOLLOWS

I'll pull the quote from Eddie's favourite website, whale.to,
<http://www.whale.to/b/brink3.html#APPROPRIATE_CRIMINAL_SANCTION_>:

> APPROPRIATE CRIMINAL SANCTION
> 
> In view of the scale and gravity of Achmatbs crime and his direct
> personal criminal culpability for bthe deaths of thousands of
> peopleb, to quote his own words, it is respectfully submitted that
> the International Criminal Court ought to impose on him the highest
> sentence provided by Article 77.1(b) of the Rome Statute, namely to
> permanent confinement in a small white steel and concrete cage,
> bright fluorescent light on all the time to keep an eye on him, his
> warders putting him out only to work every day in the prison garden
> to cultivate nutrient-rich vegetables, including when itbs raining,
> in order for him to repay his debt to society, with the ARVs he
> claims to take administered daily under close medical watch at the
> full prescribed dose, morning, noon and night, without interruption,
> to prevent him faking that hebs being treatment compliant, pushed if
> necessary down his forced-open gullet with a finger, or, if he bites,
> kicks and screams too much, dripped into his arm after hebs been
> restrained on a gurney with cable ties around his ankles, wrists and
> neck, until he gives up the ghost on them, so as to eradicate this
> foulest, most loathsome, unscrupulous and malevolent blight on the
> human race, who has plagued and poisoned the people of South Africa,
> mostly black, mostly poor, for nearly a decade now, since the day he
> and his TAC first hit the scene.
> 
> Signed at Cape Town, South Africa, on 1 January 2007
> 
> Anthony Brink

Rath sounds a charming chap: http://xrl.us/be6qy7 (Link to
www.badscience.net)

 Stewart

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2009 23:44:28 -0400 (EDT)
From: Christopher Gross <chrisg@gwu.edu>
Subject: Re: "Follow The Money"

On Tue, 28 Jul 2009, Nectar At Any Cost! wrote:

> <In the case of polio you're dead wrong.>
>
> just look at the graphs, dude.  precipitous declines began before the
> introductions of the vaccine.  *very* precipitous decline decades before.
> the introduction of the vaccines didn't change the shapes of the curves.

Okay, which graphs?  I'd be interested in seeing them.  (Yes, I admit I 
haven't read all the links you've posted.)  Every source I remember ever 
reading says that the number of cases rose sharply in the late 19th 
century and stayed at that high level until the 1950s, which occasional 
even more severe outbreaks, including a major one shortly before 
vaccination started.  A quick glance at Wikipedia shows the same thing, 
for what that's worth.

BTW, note that polio was reaching epidemic proportions at the very same 
time that improved sanitation was elminating cholera in the US.  Note also 
that in the US there was no major change in sanitation or diet between 
the early 1950s, when polio epidemics were raging, and the late 1950s, 
when polio was much less common.


- --Chris

______________________________________________________________________
Christopher Gross             On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog.
chrisg@gwu.edu

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2009 19:50:44 -0700
From: Tom Clark <tclark@mac.com>
Subject: Conan Tonight!

No Shatner or Palin, but Kyra Sundance!  Sister of my bestest bud  
(we've worked together for the past 18 years), she'll be working with  
her trained dog on The Tonight Show - tune in!

http://www.kyrasundance.com/

- -tc

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2009 22:22:34 -0500
From: Steve Schiavo <steveschiavo@mac.com>
Subject: Re: Shatner reciting Palin's farewell speech

In the spirit of Shatner....

<http://www.spinner.com/2007/06/07/iflts-fountains-of-wayne-hotline-robbie-fulks/ 
 >

I didn't know this existed.  Fulks could do a monster pop album,  
should he put his mind to it.  He's usually too country for me, but  
I'm favorably disposed toward him for God Isn't Real.

<http://www.robbiefulks.com/>


Checking my polio vaccination scar (took 3 tries to get it).



- - Steve
_______________
Interaction with cosmic intelligence may be influenced by Penrose  
noncomputable Platonic wisdom embedded in Planck scale geometry.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2009 20:11:53 -0500
From: "Brian Huddell" <bhuddell@cox.net>
Subject: RE: "Follow The Money"

> So what exactly are these postulates that germ theory fails to satisfy?

This site lists Koch's postulates and briefly addresses AIDS denialists:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17326-five-myths-about-hiv-and-aids.ht
ml

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2009 08:00:31 +0200
From: Sebastian Hagedorn <Hagedorn@spinfo.uni-koeln.de>
Subject: Re: like you're dying to know what i got to-day... (US division,  most  likely)

- -- lep <softboygirl@gmail.com> is rumored to have mumbled on 28. Juli 2009 
19:37:05 -0400 regarding like you're dying to know what i got to-day... (US 
division,  most  likely):

> so whichFegs will be watching "epitaph one" this evening?

I already did last week, and reported about it on Facebook - you should 
join us!

> (needless to mention, i'm sure) to be followed by the audio commentary
> for "daybreak"...

Can't, unfortunately, because the discs aren't out in Europe. they don't 
even have a release date yet! :(
- --
Sebastian Hagedorn
Am alten Stellwerk 22, 50733 Kvln, Germany
http://www.uni-koeln.de/~a0620/
"Being just contaminates the void" - Robyn Hitchcock

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2009 09:38:19 -0400
From: Jeremy Osner <anacreon@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Spo-dee-o-dee (wine, wine)

I wrote:
> Wikipedia thinks rather that "spo-dee-o-dee was a scat substitute for the
original motherfucker" --
> I take that to mean the original lyric was "drinkin wine, motherfucker"
and when they went to record it,
> they came up with nonsense syllables to cover that.


I have ridden my hobby-horse to victory in the space of a couple days! Found
lyrics for the original version of the song, in Nick Tosches' "The Unsung
Heroes of Rock n Roll":

http://books.google.com/books?id=l6Zf9JLMfCkC&pg=PA100&lpg=PA101&source=bl&ots=6LsyTbOFyR&sig=Pkhm2oMN19c2tItXo27iW0KQDHg&hl=en&ei=sktwSsLXIYXMNZzdldsI&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2009 11:02:11 -0400
From: jeffb@plannedbrokerage.com
Subject: Re: hot synths!

Has anybody mentioned Dave Formula from Magazine?  Just received the  
live CD/DVD in mail yesterday, and they still crank the angst!

Missing John McGeoch though. :(  Still, Dave Formula crosses the  
bridge between prog and new wave, IMHO.

I understand he is promoting a new (only) solo release.

Jeff B.

"As the circle of light increases so does the circumference of  
darkness around it." -Albert Einstein

Quoting Michael Sweeney <m_l_sweeney@hotmail.com>:

> Tom Clark wrote:
>
>> People these days do tend to look at you funny if you admit to liking
> Duran Duran. I get especially weird looks when I confess that "Save A
> Prayer" is my favorite of their songs.<
>
>
>
> ...I still treasure "The Reflex" as one of the undeniable great pop songs of
> the 1980s...
>
>
>
>
>
> Michael "I ssld the Renoir and the TV set" Sweeney

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2009 11:40:41 -0400 (EDT)
From: Christopher Gross <chrisg@gwu.edu>
Subject: RE: "Follow The Money"

On Tue, 28 Jul 2009, Brian Huddell wrote:

>> So what exactly are these postulates that germ theory fails to satisfy?
>
> This site lists Koch's postulates and briefly addresses AIDS denialists:
>
> http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17326-five-myths-about-hiv-and-aids.ht
> ml

If it was Koch's postulates he had in mind, those are just guidelines for 
determining if a particular germ causes a particular disease.  Even if 
it's true that Germ X (punk reference!) doesn't satisfy Koch's postulates 
for causing Disease Y, that doesn't undermine the whole germ theory of 
disease.  I read Eddie's earlier emails as saying that germ theory itself 
has failed its own logical test.

Forgot to mention in my previous email:

> duesberg volunteered to get injected with HIV.  don't think anybody ever
> took him up on it.

Obviously not.  As researchers believe that HIV causes AIDS, they 
consequently also believe that deliberately injecting someone with HIV, or 
providing someone with HIV samples to inject himself with, would be rather 
unethical (and could get the injector/provider into a wee bit of trouble).
I think it's actually illegal in the US to use HIV for any purpose without 
prior approval from the NIH.  So the failure of AIDS scientists to stick 
Duesberg with a needle does not indicate a fear that doing so will expose 
them as frauds.


- --Chris

______________________________________________________________________
Christopher Gross             On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog.
chrisg@gwu.edu

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2009 10:03:57 -0700
From: "Nectar At Any Cost!" <etews@inwa.net>
Subject: Re: "Follow The Money"

<As I understand it that's true of some diseases, such as cholera, but NOT
diptheria, whooping cough or polio.>

that's not at all what i'm seeing.  maybe you could explain how you think
it is that i'm mis-reading these graphs?  or point to some more up-to-date
ones?


<So what exactly are these postulates that germ theory fails to satisfy?>

<URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koch%27s_postulates>.


<Perhaps I'm being unfair, but I can't help picturing some serious
straw-man argumentation going on here (probably at one remove rather than
Eddie's own fault).>

nah; they're just logic.


<<um, no: they all took drastic dives *decades* before the introduction of
the vaccines; and were in the midst of new dives *before* the vaccinations
were introduced.>>

<Better sanitation can account for the start. Vaccination kicked it when it
was down.>

uh, when it was *90% - 100% down*, in all cases listed.


<Well, I notice that the website conveniently ignores the effective typhoid
vaccine that's been widely used since the 1940s.>

"no widespread vaccination", according to the chart.  it's for australia
only, remember.  maybe you could point to some more up-to-date, and
worldwide, graphs?


<<hell, the medical industry itself acknowledges that not all cases of
exposure produce symptoms.  it dances around this by saying that the
subject must be "susceptible" -- which is just another way of saying that
the germs didn't cause the disease.>>

<It's a statistical thing, not a black/white exposure=symptoms.>

well, that explanation contravenes the postulates -- which you had
previously contended to be both "reasonable" and "safe".  so...which is it?


<I really really recommend Goldacre's book, as it succinctly describes:

a) reversion to the mean: you tend to take something (anything: it could be
aspirin, it could be mbogo juice) to make you feel better when you're
feeling especially cruddy. Lo and behold, you get better!

b) the wonder of the placebo effect, behind which many a crank, quack and
mountebank has hidden.>

while i agree that the placebo effect can have a beneficial use, what does
this have to do with causation?


<Anecdatum: my dad's buddy Andy. Andy was a lifelong sports freak: rowed,
ran and cycled. Not an ounce of fat on him. Careful eater. Dead at 62. Bet
someone somewhere will say that he didn't eat enough greens/selenium/mbogo
juice.>

dead from what?  dollars to donuts, it can be linked to lifestyle habits.
*much* more likely something he was eating than something he wasn't.  in
fact, pretty much inconceivable from something he wasn't eating.


<Saying that not living healthfully is a bit like religious sin and guilt -
- - the reason they're dead was that they weren't quite good enough, or they
didn't quite do the rite thing ...>

yes, that's right: break the laws of nature, and consequences will ensue.
as much as we may want to blame the booger man, or the evil germs, we're
responsible for our own health.  obviously, in the case of pollution; or
having to work in a coal mine (or some such) to feed the family, we can be
trapped in a prison not of our own making...


<Yes, I did. I read the article saying that he really should've got
treatment instead of going out and hawking his ideas when he was gravely
ill, and also that he was extremely naive in believing what would make him
get better.>

could you quote the passages you're thinking of?  we've, clearly,
interpreted it differently.  but maybe there's something i missed.


<< but that sets up a paradox.  to wit, that if lobbyists couldn't affect
policy, they wouldn't be used.>>

<I'm doing a bit of following the money myself. It seems that Andrew
Wakefield, in his now notorious MMR/autism paper, was paid by lawyers
representing parents seeking to bring a suit against vaccine manufacturers,
and selected some of his candidates from this group. The Lancet has
withdrawn the article, and Wakefield was recently up in from of the GMC.
Details: http://briandeer.com/mmr/lancet-summary.htm>

um, how is the supposed to dissuade us from thinking that money can be
corrupting?


<Measles is now endemic in the UK again thanks to jokers like Wakefield.>

<URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measles_outbreaks_in_the_2000s>
attributes causation to failure to vaccinate (though recent TB outbreaks,
for example, are attributed to "drug-resistant strains").  but the
outbreaks are so small, and so widespread, and fairly frequent.  is there
really any kind of trend?


<No, it's not, and how dare you impugn the name of Science with such odious
clap-trap. Science is the rigorous discipline of developing theories,
testing them, reviewing results and continuously re-testing.>

yes, i agree.  but where's the "odious clap-trap".  how has natural hygiene
failed to present a scientific case?


<That's why I've never lived in a country without socialized medicine,
Eddie. You might as well move to Kano, where they believe that vaccinations
are western control conspiracies, and now the Kano strain of polio is
endemic in many countries religiously connected with Nigeria.>

you know as well as i that the issue in the third world is malnutrition and
inability to access clean water.


<(I mean, c'mon: *polio*. We fucken kicked that one in the 1950s: gleaming
iron lungs are so passe.>

yes, we did.  long before the vaccine arrived.


<I've seen the graphs.  Sanitation has a role, but if you're trying to use
this to prove that going from thousands of cases to near zero cases has no
causal link to vaccination you're just barking up the wrong tree.>

first off, as mentioned, the diseases were already 90% - 100% eradicated
before the vaccines were introduced.  secondly, why didn't the introduction
of vaccines change the shapes of the decline curves?


<Do you even understand what the postulates are about?  The postulates do
follow logically, and they do prove germ theory.>

well, for you to suggest that they can either prove or disprove the germ
theory illustrates that *you* don't know what they are about.  once again:
they're just logic.  they're neither reasonable nor un-reasonable, safe nor
un-safe, able to prove or disprove.

they're a set of logical conclusions (possibly not even exhaustive?),
formulated by germ-theory proponents (for what it's worth), which must be
empirically satisfied if the germ theory is to be considered valid.

the formulators set about attempting to satisfy the postulates empirically,
but were unable to do so.  so, they weakened the theory...then virus theory
was introduced...then immune theory...  now, as i say, we're told that the
subject must be "susceptible".  so, there's your moving of the goalpoasts,
for ya.

luckily enough, though, with each iteration, the solution was always the
same: eat more of our drugs, and/or have more of our surgeries.


<That there are other complications involved in individual humans that may
be confounding factors doesn't disprove this, regardless of what flavor
kool-aid you may be drinking.>

in other words: germs cause disease...except when they don't.  but if
you're going to take this position, you must of course also take the
position that vaccinations prevent disease...except when they don't.


<I think you'll have to do that yourself, since it would be unethical for
someone else to set up the experiment.  There are actually world treaties
that prevent that from happening.>

hmm...but there must be some way around that; 'cause look at all the people
allowed to take part in drug trials.  probably, i'd just need to sign a
release, absolving you of blame, and saying that i wasn't coerced, and that
i understand the risks involved, and blah blah.

look into it, if you would.  i'm quite eager to participate in the
experiment (multiple times, natch, as it's all a "statistical" crapshoot
anyway); but i don't want to take the time to set it up.


<<again: the premise of natural hygiene is that the body heals itself (not
just the human body, obviously).  so, no, hygienists don't sell (nor
endorse) therapies, supplements, herbs, or what have you.>>

<Maybe yours doesn't, but naturopathy engages in a bunch of therapies that
go above and beyond just letting the body "heal itself.">

as i say, we're talking about two different animals.  partly my fault for
not making it super-duper explicit earlier on the discussion.  i guess i
just assumed that peeps were familiar with the discipline.
<URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthopathy>.  i object to its being
termed an alternative *medicine*, as NH is opposed to medicine.  that's
practically its primary tenet.  but, the article makes that clear; so,
whatever.


<By the way, if that's all there is to it why do you need a natural
hygienist in the first place?>

you don't.  it's helpful to read the literature, of course.  but, as you
noticed from the soil and health archive, there're *buttloads* of books
freely available.



<<speculation isn't the point.  the point is that, even if we assume best
intentions, humans are fallible.  so even a situation where conflict is
*possible* is generally considered un-ethical.>>

<Humans who profess that the body heals itself when there is scads of
evidence demonstrating the wide efficacy of modern medicine can't be
fallible, though, right?>

first, that's a big-time non-sequitur.  i mean, unless you want to explain
how your response relates to the passage you're responding to.

second, it's pretty obvious: if drugs were worth a fuck, we wouldn't need
to keep filling our prescription bottles every month for the rest of our
lives, in cases of chronic disease.

in cases of acute disease, try it for yourself next time you take ill.
rather than eating drugs, eating *nothing*, drink only purified water.
stay in bed and rest, near an open window.  note how quickly the symptoms
disappear, and compare to the times you've eaten drugs.



<<if you don't think there's a connection, then, again, this raises a
paradox.  what is the purpose of the lobbyist?>>

<To be a red herring in this discussion?>

how in the FUCK is that a red herring?  actually, this pisses me off a
little.  i don't mind being called "stupid" and "evil" (not saying i
*appreciate* it -- but i won't lose any sleep over it).  but, please, just
answer the fucking question, willya?  if money does not affect policy, then
why do interested parties spend so much money trying to influence policy?


<And what is their company in business for?  To provide healthcare.>

no.  it's in business to make money.  any CEO what fails to deliver on that
front will be out on his ass in eighteen seconds; no matter how good the
product.


<Democratically formulated policy is hardly better.  Read Brian Caplan's
book "The Myth of the Rational Voter" and you'll be eased of any idea that
democratically formulated policies return a better result.>

well, what does voting have to do with democracy?  a democratic polity
would be consensus-based; or something very similar.  at the very least,
one's input into policy should be to the extent that one will be affected
by the policy.


<Democratically formulated policy is hardly better.  Read Brian Caplan's
book "The Myth of the Rational Voter" and you'll be eased of any idea that
democratically formulated policies return a better result.>

what's voting got to do with democracy?  a democratic polity would be
consensus-based; or something very similar.  at the very least, one's input
into policy decisions would be to the same extent as one would be affected
by them.


<Yes, yes.  Industrial society is collapsing.  We'll all be in a marxian
dreamland any day now.>

as you very well know, i've opined, on this board, on more than one
occasion, that i fully expect that the resource wars will be expanded into
nuclear wars.  and then we'll be kaput.  if that's what you mean by a
"marxian dreamland".


<<fair enough.  not even gravity has been proven.  but tens of thousands of
cases isn't exactly what i'd call anecdotal.>>

<How do you know if there are no controls for confounding factors? Also, I
haven't seen any longitudinal studies on "natural" remedies that actually
follow survival rates after "cure" (which is often confounded with
alternative medicine itself) to show what the real result is.>

i agree that it'd be cool to see studies.  but the cases are so voluminous
and varied that there's really very little room for doubt.  get in touch
with doug graham and/or loren lockman, if you'd like to.  they've both been
in practice for quite a while, and might be able to lend some insight.


<<<Suppositions without proof, which is all you provide>>>

<<read some of the works i linked to before (soil and health library), and
then get back to me.>>

<How about, if they are such great proof and so logical, you sum them up
for me so I don't have to go through the effort of reading so much crap
only for you to move the goalposts every time I point out where your
approach is flawed?  After all, if it is so logical, and germ theory is so
illogical, then you should be able to summarize the logic that you're
basing your arguments on.>

first, *you* said there's no proof.  i agreed, but replied that there are
volumes and volumes of evidence.  now you just want a "summary" of the
evidence?  what's the point of that?  if you need convincing, you'll need
to delve into the literature.  if you're already dead certain that it's
erroneous, there's nothing i can say, in "summary", that will change your
mind.

second, just because it's logical doesn't mean that it should be easy to
explain.  ...just sayin'.

third, i didn't say that the germ theory was *illogical*.  i said that it's
*failed the logical tests* in the real world.  therefore, it's not valid.
two different concepts.

anyways, i'll assume that the summary linked to above (from wikipedia) is
fine.  well, <URL:http://naturalhygienesociety.org/casestories.html> has a
few testimonials, if that helps.


<The biggest part is that the richer a society gets, the more they want to
live longer and be healthier in their old age.  Thus they expend more of a
percentage of income on health care than other goods. [..]>

fails to explain why there's such a huge difference between the u.s. and
the rest of the OECD.

fails to explain why the pharmaceutical industry is the most profitable
industry there is (yes, even more profitable than the military
contractors).  *profitable* as opposed to expensive, i mean.

fails to explain the strong correlation between political contributions and
corporate profitability.



well, gents, it's been fun.  i hate to be a party pooper -- honest to god.
but i just don't have the time for this.  i'll continue to follow along, of
course; and will notify you if i concede any points.  otherwise, methinks
i'm finished with the discussion.

i'll recommend, again, the work of the past masters -- especially shelton.
fry's and ehret's contributions are great, too; and ross horne's books are
very good.  they said it much better, and at much greater length, than i
could ever hope to.
<URL:http://www.soilandhealth.org/02/0201hyglibcat/0201hyglibcat.html>.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2009 15:53:05 -0500
From: 2fs <jeffreyw2fs.j@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: "Follow The Money"

On Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 12:03 PM, Nectar At Any Cost! <etews@inwa.net>wrote:

>
> <It's a statistical thing, not a black/white exposure=symptoms.>
>
> well, that explanation contravenes the postulates -- which you had
> previously contended to be both "reasonable" and "safe".  so...which is it?
>
> <Anecdatum: my dad's buddy Andy. Andy was a lifelong sports freak: rowed,
> ran and cycled. Not an ounce of fat on him. Careful eater. Dead at 62. Bet
> someone somewhere will say that he didn't eat enough greens/selenium/mbogo
> juice.>
>
> dead from what?  dollars to donuts, it can be linked to lifestyle habits.
> *much* more likely something he was eating than something he wasn't.  in
> fact, pretty much inconceivable from something he wasn't eating.
>

Oh come on: we're not machines, wherein every time Stimulus X is presented
to us, Response Y ensues like clockwork. Hell, not even machines are
machine-like, in that sense. Every person, every body, is different - and
every situation, every stressor, is different as well. Some people are going
to die of a heart attack no matter what they do; other folks will outlive
them even though they sleep three hours a night, subsist on Doritos and some
revolting color of Mountain Dew, and rarely leave their enormous asses.

I haven't really been reading all this that closely...but you seem to
believe that if all 4 points of Koch's postulates do not obtain each and
every time, no matter what other circumstances exist (and "other
circumstances" always exist), then there's no validity to them.

Fact is, in medicine every case is different, for the reasons I mention
above. So the fact that there's variability does not mean that a theory is
false. The theory describes generalities, probabilities, likely outcomes.

I'm also dubious about the general underlying aspect here - that almost
everyone else in the world is wrong, and a small minority of heterodox
thinkers have...what, the secret to eternal life? If so, oughtn't they, by
their own beliefs and machine logic, universally outlive everyone else? It
reminds me of the way some people persist in believing in astrology...even
though it should be obvious that if you studied a group of people born in
the same hospital on the same date within a few hours of one another,
there's no particular correlation of personality, etc. (I don't know that
such a study has ever been done...but if it had, and it *did* verify
astrological beliefs, of course those folks would be citing it up down and
sideways...so I conclude either there is no such study or, if there is, it
of course demolished the basis for astrology.)

- -- 

...Jeff Norman

The Architectural Dance Society
http://spanghew.wordpress.com

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2009 17:50:44 -0400
From: Marc <malberts1@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: "Follow The Money"

2fs wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 12:03 PM, Nectar At Any Cost! <etews@inwa.net>wrote:
> 
>> <It's a statistical thing, not a black/white exposure=symptoms.>
>>
>> well, that explanation contravenes the postulates -- which you had
>> previously contended to be both "reasonable" and "safe".  so...which is it?
>>
>> <Anecdatum: my dad's buddy Andy. Andy was a lifelong sports freak: rowed,
>> ran and cycled. Not an ounce of fat on him. Careful eater. Dead at 62. Bet
>> someone somewhere will say that he didn't eat enough greens/selenium/mbogo
>> juice.>
>>
>> dead from what?  dollars to donuts, it can be linked to lifestyle habits.
>> *much* more likely something he was eating than something he wasn't.  in
>> fact, pretty much inconceivable from something he wasn't eating.
>>
> 
> Oh come on: we're not machines, wherein every time Stimulus X is presented
> to us, Response Y ensues like clockwork. Hell, not even machines are
> machine-like, in that sense. Every person, every body, is different - and
> every situation, every stressor, is different as well. Some people are going
> to die of a heart attack no matter what they do; other folks will outlive
> them even though they sleep three hours a night, subsist on Doritos and some
> revolting color of Mountain Dew, and rarely leave their enormous asses.
> 
> I haven't really been reading all this that closely...but you seem to
> believe that if all 4 points of Koch's postulates do not obtain each and
> every time, no matter what other circumstances exist (and "other
> circumstances" always exist), then there's no validity to them.
> 
> Fact is, in medicine every case is different, for the reasons I mention
> above. So the fact that there's variability does not mean that a theory is
> false. The theory describes generalities, probabilities, likely outcomes.
> 
> I'm also dubious about the general underlying aspect here - that almost
> everyone else in the world is wrong, and a small minority of heterodox
> thinkers have...what, the secret to eternal life? If so, oughtn't they, by
> their own beliefs and machine logic, universally outlive everyone else? It
> reminds me of the way some people persist in believing in astrology...even
> though it should be obvious that if you studied a group of people born in
> the same hospital on the same date within a few hours of one another,
> there's no particular correlation of personality, etc. (I don't know that
> such a study has ever been done...but if it had, and it *did* verify
> astrological beliefs, of course those folks would be citing it up down and
> sideways...so I conclude either there is no such study or, if there is, it
> of course demolished the basis for astrology.)

It's not often I agree with Jeff, so here's a rare thumbs up for Jeff.  Yay!

As for your question, Eddie--dead from the disease they supposedly were 
treated for.  It is extremely common for people who receive alternative 
therapies to immediately go and praise their "cure," and that is the 
anecdote that gets recorded.  When the placebo effect/symptomatic 
relief/etc. passes, no one goes back to their grave sites to re-record 
their endorsement.  That is why, as I said, the plural of "anecdotes" is 
not "data."  Data actually requires things like longitudinal studies 
that follow the progress of the patient not just at the time of the 
"cure" but also years, often times decades, later to determine true 
efficacy of the treatment.  You cannot get that in any collection of 
success anecdotes, ever.  A big example of this is that mammography, 
which often cited as increasing breast cancer rates because it detects 
tumors so small that they often, if left untreated, would be simply 
reabsorbed by the body.  But the natural cure folks who refuse chemo and 
get their "natural" treatments are statistically often the folks that 
would have had their tumors reabsorbed in the first place, so their 
anecdotes of a cure prove...nothing.  Certainly not the efficaciousness 
of a given regimen.   But for those who really do have cancer, and who 
do die because they choose not to get chemo, what happens to their 
anecdotes?  You don't find those on the websites of the natural cure 
folks. You'll never hear them come out from the grave to say "boy, I 
wish I'd only not been an idiot and tried chemo, just in case my small 
tumor wasn't the start of something deadly even though it would have 
caused me to lose my hair and a lot of weight."  Get the point now, Eddie?


To further underscore the point that the plural of "anecdote" is not 
"data," if you have success anecdotes then you're not dealing with a 
double-blind study, and therefore you really have no ability to measure 
the efficacy in the first place.  The logical approach, which Eddie 
seems to think only he follows, requires that you minimize for any and 
all confounding factors before you make a call of efficacy.  You can't 
do that in many (most?  nearly all?  not sure the percentages) without 
comparing normal standards of care blindly against the proposed new 
standard of care.  In these cases, people don't know what they receive 
so they could never give the sort of anecdotes that Eddie sees as proof.

Marc

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