There are those of you who are not interested in alternative health care. For you, I have only this to say. William Randolph Hearst, a founding member of the AMA, only used homeopathic remedies, and lived to the ripe old age of (something like) 88. Never used doctors, so why would the richest man in the world promote the creation of a medical association if he, himself, didn't trust doctors who dwelt mainly on distributing drugs to keep him well? The answer is obvious: The whole AMA exercise is, and always has been, a sham designed to make money by bilking people - in this case, sick people who really need help that they aren't getting.

Anyway, here's the http for the health newsletter:

http://blogs.healthfreedomalliance.org/

Hope you enjoy the mag; there're lots of accompanying articles regarding ADD and other 'disorders', as well, listed along either side. Browse to your content. My next research is going to be on gout.

Here's a past issue that my sister sent me:

Ritalin Linked With Sudden Death of Children

Just to balance things out, I also have some links!

Placebo effect behind many natural cures
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33833275/ns ... _medicine/

Ginkgo biloba doesn't work
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/12/29/gi ... index.html

$2.5 billion spent, no alternative cures found
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31190909/

Dangers of alternative therapies
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/commen ... 760311.ece

No argument there - approximately 20% of all cures is psychosomatic, as are approximately 20% of all ills, and can be cured simply by addressing the condition, either with medication, placebos or spiritually, through faith or prayer. That is one reason why so many really stupid 'remedies' exist out there.


Don't know anything about it. Didn't know it was being touted as a 'brain fixer', but wouldn't have believed it anyway. I've also heard that Acupuncture can 'improve' your mind, but am not willing to let somebody poke me with a bunch of needles, even though my mind isn't nearly as sharp as it was before I was gassed and operated on. The Morphine afterward didn't help, either. In fact, it took a couple of years and the concept of putting down my dark thoughts on paper (keyboard) to get them out of my head (another form of alternative psychotherapy) before I began being interested in anything beyond food and sleep. (My wife would disagree - she would say that I still haven't developed beyond that, ha-ha.)


On this, I have a few points:
Echinacea does not cure colds, as it was tested to do. Regarding its usage, you take it when you have to be around a sickie who is obviously infecting everyone in the work area, and you are less likely to catch the cold, or, if you do, you won't have it as long.
Glucosamine and chondroitin both were tried by my wife, and she received absolutely no benefits or relief from her arthritis at all. When mixed with Willow Bark, I got some relief, but it was momentary and could easily be attributed to massaging the stuff into my joints.
Ginger (the bark, not that powdery stuff sold in stores) is often effective in aiding a type-two diabetic's body in the production of insulin. I have no idea how it works. I gave up on testing this myself, as I was using the store-bought variety instead of the bark of the tree. Haven't tested that, as I haven't researched how to find any.
Acupuncture, yoga, meditation, various counseling techniques require trained practitioners to obtain results. But these are all religious practices, and no doubt faith that these techniques will work has much to do with the outcome. Even a witch doctor has that magical 20% cure rate, so who's to say his chants, dances and magical smoke don't work?


No argument there, (refer to comment on stupid remedies above) except to ask that all alternative 'remedies' aren't relegated to the status of snake oil. I haven't noticed any significant changes since I've started taking what you called 'pool chlorine'. I'm hoping that it will reduce my arthritis, which I am still taking medication for, as well as a skin condition I've had for years which is currently controlled by soaking several times a week in a highly chlorinated jacuzzi. However, chlorine is toxic and causes small, itchy patches to break out, and what I'm taking is not. And I would sincerely love to get rid of that constant itchy sensation as well as the stinky fungal infection that ignores every medical remedy and alternative solution I've used on it.

If it doesn't do what I hope it does, not to worry, I won't lie and promote it anyway.

One last point I'd like to make - most people are good, decent folks who just want to co-exist with others and maybe make some kind of difference. Some of these people who have their own 'magical formula to cure everyone' might have a difficult time when the PTB descend to ruin their dreams. Your premise that people who blame the FDA for their failures has merit, in that some of these magical formulas (spell checker won't let me spell that with an 'e') are harmful, and innocent victims have been protected. However, there is a conspiracy, and it involves the control of entire populations. These ideas and the execution of them occur behind doors marked ‘Private’, far away from where good, decent people might notice them, and these 'evil ones' (pardon my dramatics, here) have the money and power of entire nations at their disposal.

Decisions are bought and sold daily. L-tryptophane was removed from the health market because several people (about 15) died from its 'misuse'. How anyone figured that out, I have no idea. I used tryptophane for many years, and it was incredibly effective. When it was discovered that a single 'bad' batch of tryptophane was the cause and that the Japanese manufacturer had corrected the problem, the FDA ruled that tryptophane still not be allowed back on the market. Why? Many more people die of overdoses of 'sleep aids' than the supposed 15 from L-tryptophane, yet the FDA has failed to recall those dangerous drugs. Somebody is being paid to look the other way.

There was a law passed in 1998 giving people the right to seek alternative treatments. That law will be overruled later this year when a new law comes into effect that gives the FDA the right to shut down approximately 50% of the operating manufacturers of natural vitamins and minerals. As you say, the drug companies have begun manufacturing these products, also, but the fact is, once the 'illegal production' (i.e. competition) is decimated, prices for natural remedies will soar. And since most health insurance and HMOs won't pay for non-AMA-prescribed medication, natural vitamins and minerals will become too expensive to use, and America will truly fall under the thumb of the drug companies, their remedies and their sickening side effects.

Providers of natural remedies will be forced underground, like the illegal drug dealers you find on many street corners. Regulation and quality control of vitamins and minerals will become impossible, as no one will be able to tell what they're really buying. Even today, there are dozens of 'prescription drugs at reasonable prices' ads on the internet, and one has no idea if what they are buying is the real deal, or if it will kill them. Eradication of vitamin and mineral distributors seems to be the answer that Congress has provided, helped along by drug company lobbyists with large checkbooks. That's how Congress operates these days. Personal fortunes are paramount, and no one in the government looks to the future to see what their actions will bring to the rest of us.

There are similar stories concerning the effectiveness of ‘natural’ vitamin E vs. the manufactured version, which is much cheaper and which many people buy because they can’t afford the real stuff. Another is the drug company development of B3 – Niacin. After WWII, tests were done on radiation victims using natural B3, and the symptoms of radiation sickness were greatly reduced. The version of B3 – Niacinimide – produced by the drug companies has no effect on radiation sickness. Instead, expensive, toxic solutions to radiation have been developed. Natural Vitamin E, Niacin and Vitamin C with Areola could help victims of Chemotherapy recover much more quickly, but the drug companies can’t make any money on these remedies, so they are suppressed and the manufacturers of these products may well soon be run out of business with federal lawsuits and impossible-to-comply-with FDA regulations.

DanK, you are completely right that "most people are good, decent folks who just want to co-exist with others and maybe make some kind of difference."

And the simple fact is that the people who work for the FDA and pharmaceutical companies are exactly that. “good, decent folks who just want to co-exist with others and maybe make some kind of difference."

I realize that it is easy and fun to believe in conspiracies, urban legends and fairy tales. I myself believe in the Loch Ness Monster because 1. It is harmless to do so, and 2. I saw the Loch Ness Monster when I was at Loch Ness in Scotland. If truly pressured I would be forced to admit that what I saw was probably an optical illusion and that there is no Loch Ness Monster, but it is fun to believe in it and so I choose to do so.

But believing in some things isn’t so harmless.

There is no conspiracy. I don’t doubt that there are bad people in the world, and some of them might work for the FDA and some of them might work for pharmaceutical companies, but the vast majority of people working there are normal folks who honestly have the best interests of the American people at heart.

I work with employees of the FDA and many, many pharmaceutical companies everyday, in all ranks and file. My boss was a higher-up (Vice President) at Abbot pharmaceutical before he decided to come work for the review board side of the process. He cares deeply, almost obsessively, about the care and protection of sick people. I know folks from GlaxoKlineSmith, from Pfizer, and from pretty much every drug-producing company you could name. They are everyone of them the kind of “good, decent folks” you describe. So are the people working for the FDA.

They care very deeply about the needs of the American people, and they understand the challenges of delivering safe, effective medicine, of balancing the risks and benefits, and of helping the greatest number of people they can, all while maintaining their business.

And of course they want to make money. So do I. And there are some whose desire for money outranks their ethical principals, as in every single company on Earth. Fortunately, those people are not the majority. And when they are sniffed out, they are disgraced and fired. They are the exception, not the rule.

Ethics are such a HUGE part of medicine. The ethical decisions take as big a role as the science involved. Almost all medicine carries some sort of side-effects, and the science is never nearly as precise as one would hope. No matter how much you test something, you never really know what is going to happen when the drug is put out for wide sale.

Choices must always be made, and the decision-makers err on the side of precaution more than anything else. Many, many more drugs fail the test than pass. For every thousand or so drugs tested two or three might actually be granted drug licenses. The rest carry too much risk, or (more often) cannot prove their benefit in a controlled trial.

Placebo tests are the big killer. Most drugs fail against double-blind placebo tests. Even though science says that these chemicals should have a certain effect, if the patient can’t tell the difference between a placebo and the real thing, then the drug fails. The well-being of the patient is the ultimate barrier. We don’t want people wasting their hard-earned money on things that have no effect beyond placebo. It isn’t fair or ethical to allow that.

This fear you have of the eradication of vitamin and mineral sellers is just bizarre. No one would want that. Just the eradication of snake oil salesmen, of dealers in “shark cartilage” and “royal jelly.”

Currently, there is NO quality control of “supplements.” People can claim out-and-out lies, and there is nothing anyone can do about it. As long as they couch their language carefully, with terms like “has been shown to…” and “many people…” without making any direct claims, then they cannot be sued.

And what are these “impossible-to-comply-with FDA regulations?” That the treatment works? That is the only FDA regulation. Can you prove that your treatment works? If the answer is yes, off you go. If the answer is no, then you don’t get to put it out for sale.

The only people who find those regulations impossible to comply to are those who don’t have an effective treatment.

And yes, most artificial vitamins are not as good as natural ones, which is why most doctors don’t recommend them. I just had a physical with my doctor, and he said that vitamin supplements are almost useless: one should be getting the necessary vitamins from natural food products, not pills. If you need vitamin E, start eating more spinach, broccoli and seeds. If you need vitamin B3, well…there are a lot of natural sources. And all natural sources are better than popping a pill.

Oh, and as to L-tryptophane, a little research shows that you are wrong about that. In 1989 L-tryptophane caused 1,500 cases of permanent disability including at least thirty-seven deaths. Some studies linked the cases back to an impurity by the Japanese company, while other studies demonstrated that large doses of tryptophan produce metabolites which inhibit the normal degradation of histamine and excess histamine in turn has been proposed to cause EMS.

Because the conflicting research could not prove L-tryptophane to be 100% safe, in 1991 the FDA erred on the side of caution and banned the drug, as did many countries. On further research and consideration, the ban was relaxed in 2001 and repealed in 2002.

The ban was in effect a total of ten years, and L-tryptophane has been legal to sell for nine years now. You could run out and get a bottle today if you wanted one.

If you can not find it at your local store, here are some websites that would be happy to sell you a bottle or two.

http://www.vitaminshoppe.com/store/en/b ... ku=SR-1167

http://www.drugstore.com/products/prod. ... =418507864

So you are simply wrong about L-tryptophane. The sources that you get your information from are wrong about L-tryptophane. Perhaps it is time to consider that they might just possibly be wrong about other things too. Maybe everything.

I just replied to the (more or less) related Fight Club post on this topic with my opinions on placebo and belief, so I won't repeat them here. I would like to say, however, that acupuncture is NOT a religious practice. It's physical. Belief is not required. Don't have the citations at hand, but several researchers (mostly French and Japanese, AFAIK) have demonstrated the physical existence of very fine channels in the traditional locations of the meridians. Tracers injected into acupuncture points revealed the fine channels, which were found to contain a fluid with an unusual biochemical composition, including a high level of neurotransmitters. When the tracers were injected into locations other than acupuncture points, they diffused into the surrounding tissues in the way you'd expect. Other researchers have found that the acupuncture points have electrical potentials that differ notably from those of the surrounding skin, and that inserting and twirling the needle changed the electrical potentials and initiated something like the "current of injury" that is observed in injured and healing tissues (see Dr. Robert Becker's work regarding the electrical properties of injury and healing - he's worked a lot with bones).

I don't AT ALL discount placebo & belief (quite the opposite - see my other post); I think it's in fact at work in many cases where it's assumed that the medical intervention is wholly responsible for healing outcomes. But IMO it's not at work in acupuncture (animals respond to acupuncture as well as humans, for example; how does placebo figure in there?). Or, for that matter, in yoga either, just to pull one more method out of your list, but I don't have any evidence to back that up.

Hey, stranger, long time no see. I've stayed out of this discussion because both combatants hold their views so rabidly I stopped even following it after just the first few volleys, but it's good to see you around again! Hope you stay for awhile!

I agree acupuncture has some basis in science. Just recently I found out that it can be performed using cold laser in place of those scary needles, so now people can receive the benefits of acupuncture without the invasive procedure of the needles. In fact, you can get a chart and a pen laser and save yourself 50 bucks by having your partner do it to you.

Thanks. It's nice to be upright and ambulatory again, although I coulda used another week off work just for mental health -- unfortunately the doctor said I was okay to go back! I'm not complaining about being better, of course. Now that the scary stuff is over it's all, hey, how come you never post any more? and hey, you wanna see my scar?

I'm staying out of the actual argument 'cos, as I said elsewhere, I have no knowledge or experience of how the FDA or the pharmas work, and unfortunately Sturgeon's Law applies most emphatically to much of what is called alternative health. And I think, as I also said, that it's belief itself we need to study and learn to harness; that the exotic "cures" are not the curative agents ...

So let's see your scar! Oh, erm, I mean, 'glad you're feeling better, at least physically.' Yeah, that's what I meant. I hadn't known you were horizontal and non-ambulatory... so I'm glad you're not.

For myself, the Meniere's that had gone politely into remission for the past five years or so is back with a vengeance, so that sucks. There are also other things, but they're tedious. If each of us went into long, detailed descriptions of our physical health I think we'd be here forever, and the board might crash!

Anyway, glad to see you again!

Short version of the story, I had a sizable tumor removed from my cervical spine right after Xmas. *ouch!* I can't show you the scar right now - it's on the back of my neck, and I neglected to ask one of my helpers to take a shot of it before they all went home. But if anybody's curious about my little surgery I can post a link to a page where I was keeping people updated about it while I was out, which wouldn't clog up the board, and there's a GREAT photo there of the nasssssty tumor, that I clipped out of my MRI CD ... (where's the "ewwwww!" emoticon?)