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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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tw101356
Skeptic Friend
USA
333 Posts |
 Posted - 04/25/2004 : 12:09:51 [Permalink]
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Looks like she forgot: "Every time you take a prescription drug, God kills a kitten."
Of course, this was an infomercial, right? That wasn't a real skeptic, just someone who plays one on TV.
- TW |
- TW
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dominic_dice
Skeptic Friend
United Kingdom
53 Posts |
Posted - 04/25/2004 : 13:30:39 [Permalink]
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| Some cancers are cause by a bad diet. For example the chances of bowel cancer are increased if you have a lack of fibre because crap spends too much time in the body. But too say cancer is only due to stress, diet etc is stupid. |
"Are you THE dominic_dice"
"No, a dominic_dice. I come in six packs now" |
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Renae
SFN Regular
543 Posts |
Posted - 04/25/2004 : 18:26:38 [Permalink]
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I don't know about anger specificially, but I've read that stress can affect your immune system. A link:
http://stress.about.com/cs/immunesystem/a/cold.htm
I don't know how or if our immune system affects our susceptibility to cancer, though.
It's dangerous to claim that your diet can cure cancer. Although I've also read that a diet high in fruits and vegetables can HELP prevent certain types of cancers (the same goes for dairy products, I think. I'm too tired to look it up.)
I worry that this kind of misniformation might discourage women from seeking treatment or preventive screenings, like Pap smears or mammograms, that have been proven to work. |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 04/25/2004 : 19:03:58 [Permalink]
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If Karma really worked, this nitwit peddler of misinformation would wake up some morning with a 300 pound, fallopian tumor (benign, of course. I'm not quite that evil).
It is a sad commentary on the educational status of our general population that this book will sell well enough to encourage her to write another, equally silly.
On the plus side, she seems to reccommend clean living, something I and Dolly Parton avoid at all cost, and perhaps that might help a little.
Anger, in my experience, has just the opposit effect on the immune system. Anger can get your nose broken, then the immune system must go into high gear to prevent infection. 
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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dominic_dice
Skeptic Friend
United Kingdom
53 Posts |
Posted - 04/28/2004 : 11:56:56 [Permalink]
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| I know that humans are not really that simialr to fish, but stress (caused by by fear, chemical levels like nitrates being too high etc) definitly causes disease. |
"Are you THE dominic_dice"
"No, a dominic_dice. I come in six packs now" |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 04/28/2004 : 12:34:15 [Permalink]
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Ricky wrote:quote:
Ok, now I may be wrong here, I'm no doctor, but I'm pretty sure that diets do not cause cancer. Diets can increase the risk of getting cancer, but they are not the cause of it.
Would you say, then, that smoking doesn't cause cancer, but just increases the risk of it?
Without getting into a semantic argument over 'causes' and 'increases the risk', the real point behind bringing up smoking is that it, like eating, introduces foreign substances into the body. Whether these substances can themselves induce genetic changes which turn cells cancerous, or they just make it less likely for built-in cancer-preventing mechanisms to work, is an academic question. The end result is the same.
I'm also not saying that such an academic question shouldn't be investigated. I'm just saying that the general question "can stuff we ingest lead to cancer?" is answerable in the affirmative regardless of the deeper biological reasons for the increased risk.
dominic_dice wrote:quote:
I know that humans are not really that simialr to fish, but stress (caused by by fear, chemical levels like nitrates being too high etc) definitly causes disease.
Stress - both physical and emotional - can induce large shifts in hormones (and thus other chemicals) in the human body, too. The idea that an adrenaline rush is risk-free is unsupported (for just one example). For another, in times of stress many people's andrenals pump up production of cortisol, which does indeed inhibit immune response, Renae (corticosteroids, like cortisol, are used as anti-inflammatories).
The big problem with the ideas presented in the infomercial cited in the OP is that it's basically saying "relax, eat right, and drink lots of water and you'll never get cancer." That ridiculous. The idea that sunlight doesn't cause skin cancer is a dangerous idea, too. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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Trish
SFN Addict
USA
2102 Posts |
Posted - 04/30/2004 : 09:34:34 [Permalink]
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She developed MS? MS is detectable through MRIs and spinal taps. Plus at least two active attacks are required by the MS Society for a diagnosis of MS. MS doesn't just go away either.
Bee stings, rattlesnake bites, etc were all offered in the 70s as 'cures' for MS. I don't even want to think about the rest of the 'cures' offered for MS over the years. |
...no one has ever found a 4.5 billion year old stone artifact (at the right geological stratum) with the words "Made by God."
No Sense of Obligation by Matt Young
"Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith. I consider the capacity for it terrifying and vile!"
Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
They (Women Marines) don't have a nickname, and they don't need one. They get their basic training in a Marine atmosphere, at a Marine Post. They inherit the traditions of the Marines. They are Marines.
LtGen Thomas Holcomb, USMC
Commandant of the Marine Corps, 1943
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 04/30/2004 : 09:59:24 [Permalink]
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Well, Trish one of the reasons that bee stings (etc.) were (and are) suggested for MS is that it does "just go away." Temporarily, that is, and especially with relapsing-remitting MS.
That's standard operating procedure for quackery: try stuff on a disease which is known to go away - at least a little - all by itself, and then claim that the stuff did it, therefore the stuff is a cure. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Woody D
Skeptic Friend
Thailand
285 Posts |
Posted - 04/30/2004 : 21:08:35 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Ricky
Pharmaceutical companies are keeping everyone sick
Well....have you seen some of the side effects that they rattle off after advertizing some of those medications on TV? Do you read the PDR to see the testing and results that are associated with drugs?
I've been perscribed things that are worse than what I want to get rid of.
I make a judgement of my own if I should take them or not.
Yeah, drugs are good (when you REALLY need them*, for things that are out of ones control) but to look at what else they do to you besides cure/help, one might get the idea that indeed they do want to keep you sick to make money selling you another drug to counteract what they've given you in the 1st place.
*If people would pay as much attention to their health in the 1st place, like eating a good diet, then they wouldn't need 1/2 the things they take.
So instead of complaining that the drug companies are the bad guys, do the right thing and don't give them a chance to control you.
quote:
"Healing hormones" are produced by the body between 10pm and 2am.
Maybe this is a case of 1/2 truths. Heart attacks for example are more frequent during certain hours. So maybe there are time factors in what she says, but using terms like 'healing hormones' is something to be for which to be skeptical. |
www.Carabao.net
As long as there's, you know, sex and drugs, I can do without the rock and roll.
Mick Shrimpton
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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Trish
SFN Addict
USA
2102 Posts |
Posted - 04/30/2004 : 21:33:44 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.
Well, Trish one of the reasons that bee stings (etc.) were (and are) suggested for MS is that it does "just go away." Temporarily, that is, and especially with relapsing-remitting MS.
That's standard operating procedure for quackery: try stuff on a disease which is known to go away - at least a little - all by itself, and then claim that the stuff did it, therefore the stuff is a cure.
Yeah I know Dave, believe me I know. But the damage caused to the mycelin sheath itself doesn't 'go away'. This damage is part of the MS. This damage can be measured over time. Even new scars will occur without overt syptoms of MS or a relapse.
My father brought home literature on every new 'cure' for MS he found anywhere. Mom chose to wait until NMSS had something to say about the 'cure'. |
...no one has ever found a 4.5 billion year old stone artifact (at the right geological stratum) with the words "Made by God."
No Sense of Obligation by Matt Young
"Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith. I consider the capacity for it terrifying and vile!"
Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
They (Women Marines) don't have a nickname, and they don't need one. They get their basic training in a Marine atmosphere, at a Marine Post. They inherit the traditions of the Marines. They are Marines.
LtGen Thomas Holcomb, USMC
Commandant of the Marine Corps, 1943
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 04/30/2004 : 22:30:51 [Permalink]
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Ricky wrote:quote:
And one might get the idea that the Easter Bunny is real, but that doesn't make him so. If the companies are doing this and you can show that they are, then the claim is valid. Otherwise....
In all fairness, Woody wrote that "one might get the idea that" the drug companies want to keep people sick. My emphasis on 'might', although it's been obvious to me that many people have precisely that idea. Especially amongst the sufferers of diseases for which there is no cure, in which case the idea is that the drug companies sell crap they know doesn't work, in order to keep people coming back (and/or that they know of a cure, but are suppressing it for profitability).
The idea is so prevalent among psoriasis sufferers, for example, that I wrote an article about it three years ago, called "The Economic Effects of a Psoriasis Cure." And there are, in fact, people out there who refuse to use the products offered by pharmaceutical giants because they are "boycotting" the money-grubbing jerkoffs who are suppressing the psoriasis cure which has allegedly been around for decades now.
Because I've written that article, and argued for years against these conspiracy theories, I have been labeled everything a "drug company apologist" to a "big pharma thug." My online friends and I had a running joke for a while about the parties we had on the huge yacht I own, purchased with the money the drug companies gave me in return for publicly suppressing "alternative" psoriasis therapies.
The facts are as follows:- Drug companies sometimes collude to fix prices on vitamins and other low-investment, low-profit items.
- Drug companies are in fierce competition with each other over high-investment, high-dollar pharmaceuticals.
- Many people do not or can not make the distinction, and assume that since drug companies have been caught conspiring over crap, they'll also conspire when it comes to their high-end products.
- The less curable the disease, the more likely it is that the cutting-edge therapies will cost a ton of money (the latest psoriasis treatments can run up to $15,000 a year).
- There is an insidious idea that doctors, like car mechanics, have all these boat payments to make, and so would rather see an incurable patient six times a year and prescribe useless junk than be able to make a patient well.
- There is another insidious idea that every time a prescription is filled at a pharmacy, some sort of untracable direct deposit is made into the prescribing doctor's back account, from the company which made the drug.
- Finally, the worst idea is that the drug companies, for some strange reason, should be more altruistic than any other company, and give their products away at cost.
All of the above, combined, give us an atmosphere in which people readily think that drug companies are in business only to keep us sick, and our family doctors go right along with the scam in order to keep their boats. A rational examination of the situation tells us it is not true, but that doesn't matter much against the weight of public opinion. A public which is scared to death of getting sick and not being able to afford treatment which works.
In short, this is a case where saying "that claim isn't valid" is not good enough. It needs to be demonstrated that the claims aren't valid, and demonstrated loudly and publicly for any change in opinion to be made. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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