Same problem. Just listen to a few episodes of The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe to see how bad the data is in the handful of studies that suggest these forms of treatment provide any benefit.
As with all things, there's a reasonable chance that I'm mistaken. However, I've found that skeptics' radio shows aren't always the best sources of information, as they tend to be somewhat reactionary.
Well, consider hypnotherapy. Hypnotherapy isa useful treatment that was born out ofquackery.
Fixed it. You can try to debate that point if you wish, but be sure you've actually read whatever "evidence" you plan to put forth or you'll just make yourself look silly.
If I understand correctly, the main difficulty here is that double-blind studies aren't designed in a way that makes them useful when studying hypnosis.
It is a sham treatment of the worst kind, and I honestly feel that its practitioners should be prosecuted and its clinics forcibly closed. Acupuncture is little better, have no more effect than a placebo and no legitimate medical use. Even hinting that either of these treatments is in any way effective or has led to any legitimate medical advancement is laughable.
The NIH believed acupuncture was a useful field for continued study back in 1997. Justified or not, chiropractic has had a hostile relationship with the American Medical Association for many years. This came to a head during Wilk vs. American Medical Association. While such a lawsuit suggests nothing about the efficacy of chiropractic adjustment, it does suggest a charged partisan environment, which is never a good one for fostering research. Much like hypnosis, double blind studies are also not effective in gathering useful information about chiropractic adjustment.
Perhaps another example... Blood transfusion was invented before we came to understand the importance of blood types. As such, basically all early experiments with blood transfusion resulted in death. Restrictive legislation would have limited its practice until it was understood more effectively, which is not unreasonable. Too restrictive legislation would have banned its study altogether, or withdrawn the economic incentive to make such studies.
Not sure if it's related to all this, but there is a book I think you might like. It's called The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn. If you have the opportunity, you should give it a browse.
Perhaps another example... Blood transfusion was invented before we came to understand the importance of blood types. As such, basically all early experiments with blood transfusion resulted in death.
There was sound science behind that research. There were also measurable effects. Research like that would not and should not be banned.
Restrictive legislation would have limited its practice until it was understood more effectively, which is not unreasonable.
It was limited, as it did cause death. In general, human trials SHOULD be banned until efficacy and safety are brought to reasonably verifiable levels.
Too restrictive legislation would have banned its study altogether, or withdrawn the economic incentive to make such studies.
Can you name any instance of protective legislation preventing the research of a legitimate and effective form of treatment? Stem cells aren't a valid example, since that legislation has nothing to do with consumer protection and is purely a "moral" issue.
The NIH believed acupuncture was a useful field for continued study back in1997.
Yes. Exploring possible leads in a verifiable scientific environment is what is supposed to happen. "Treating" people outside of such an environment when there is no evidence of efficacy is dangerous and counter-productive.
If I understand correctly, the main difficulty here is that double-blind studies aren't designed in a way that makes them useful when studying hypnosis.
That's the cop-out line of flim-flam artists around the world. "Our fake medicine is effective! But there's no way to prove it! Trust us!" That's bullshit. Besides, double-blind tests can easily be put together for something like acupuncture or hypnotherapy. The only case in which this would not be true is if the method of treatment doesn't actually have a verifiable or reproducible protocol, which is the hallmark of made-up bullshit.
Also, in the example of acupuncture, the very BASIS of it is fake. The CORE of the idea is made-up. There was NOTHING to justify further study, no verifiable or reproducible evidence of efficacy, and no indication that future results would be different.
Justified or not, chiropractic has had a hostile relationship with the American Medical Association for many years.
This is because any legitimate doctor knows that chiropractic is dangerous, ineffective, and based directly on the teachings of a known con man. The hostile environment was and is justified, as there is no evidence of any efficacy and clear evidence of fraud.
It does suggest a charged partisan environment, which is never a good one for fostering research.
It has been established for decades upon decades that Chiropractic is sham medicine. There is no justification for any amount of further research whatsoever. It's a fraud, invented by a fraudster, and that's the end of that.
Well, consider hypnotherapy. Hypnotherapy isa useful treatment that was born out ofquackery.
Fixed it. You can try to debate that point if you wish, but be sure you've actually read whatever "evidence" you plan to put forth or you'll just make yourself look silly.
If I understand correctly, the main difficulty here is that double-blind studies aren't designed in a way that makes them useful when studying hypnosis.
Oh, I see. It's flawed studies, not the fact that hypnotherapy is bollocksy quackery.
Justified or not, chiropractic has had a hostile relationship with the American Medical Association for many years. This came to a head duringWilk vs. American Medical Association. While such a lawsuit suggests nothing about the efficacy of chiropractic adjustment, it does suggest a charged partisan environment, which is never a good one for fostering research.
. . . and chiro just has a hard time being accepted because it's being "kept down by the man."
Perhaps another example... Blood transfusion was invented before we came to understand the importance of blood types. As such, basically all early experiments with blood transfusion resulted in death. Restrictive legislation would have limited its practice until it was understood more effectively, which is not unreasonable. Too restrictive legislation would have banned its study altogether, or withdrawn the economic incentive to make such studies.
Not sure if it's related to all this, but there is a book I think you might like. It's calledThe Structure of Scientific Revolutionsby Thomas Kuhn. If you have the opportunity, you should give it a browse.
The difference between blood transfusion and the "treatments" you talk about is that blood transfusion can actually be studied, because it's real science. It also actually works. As Scott said earlier, legislation designed to ban fake medicines or to enable a regulatory agency to control fake medicines is not the same as denying study.
Finally, are you suggesting that hypnotherapy, acupuncture, and chiropractic are "revolutionary sciences" that are scientifically valid, work consistently for scientific reasons, and can be studied scientifically, but have not yet had time to gain support?
No, the point is that for some reason many people believe a drug is working if it costs them more money. By the same token many people will also believe something is really bad for them if they are told it is.
Case A we had people being told they were getting a very expensive drug and they felt they were getting results. Case B we had people being told that a substance was very bad for them and they believed it.
In both cases they were getting something that had no effect on them.
Oh, so I guess I can cure cancer by charging people $1K for an sugar pill. Further, I suppose that we can put all the asbestos back into our buildings because the people who contracted mesothelioma only thought they were sick.
Many doctors and regulators agree that medicinal marijuana should in fact be available. It is the federal government, not the regulators, who are keeping it illegal. It is not blocked due to a lack of efficacy, but BECAUSE of its efficacy. That's entirely different from a product which doesn't work at all.
I suggest that anyone who thinks chiropractic, homeopathy, etc. is not quackery actually go and study the history of these things.
It seems to me like most people think that chiropractor is just the word for back doctor. Chiropractors are not back doctors. The book of chiropractic says that every illness in humans is caused by a subluxation in the spine. You heard right. According to official chiropractic doctrine, you can cure AIDS by adjusting the spine.
Of course there is evidence that getting massages and such can help with back pain. Many chiropractors use basic massage or physical therapy in combination with their bullshit, and incredibly dangerous, spinal "adjustments". The chiropractor is not adjusting your spine. They are just cracking your vertebrate, the same way you crack your knuckles. This is incredibly dangerous, and can actually cause damage to the spine. Go to any non-bullshit massage therapy class and the first thing they will tell you to absolutely not go anywhere near the spine.
You might say well, the massaging helps, so why not go to the chiropractor? I ask, why go to the bullshit chiropractor when you can get the same shit for free from a friend? Why go to the chiropractor when you can go to the masseuse at the local health club?
I've noticed that many people who defend bullshit like acupuncture, chiropractic, homeopathy, reflexology, hypnotherapy, etc. don't actually know much about what those things are. Study the origins of these things. Study the logic and reasoning behind why these things supposedly work. If you do that, and you still believe, I have a dictionary here, and the word gullible isn't in it.
Oh, I see. It's flawed studies, not the fact that hypnotherapy is bollocksy quackery.
I wasn't saying anything about flawed studies, I was noting that one of the most reliable of our methods for determining validity, the double blind test, has certain requirements for use that can limit its application in certain fields. (What would you say a good control would be for hypnosis in a double-blind state?) To satisfy the most conservative of the scientific public, a treatment must pass double blind tests before it is considered legitimate. This places things outside the scope of double blind tests in a sort of limbo, which by default is lumped in with quackery.
. . . and chiro just has a hard time being accepted because it's being "kept down by the man."
Although that was the gist of the lawsuit I linked to, and what the courts decided, I was simply suggesting that there is an antagonistic relationship, which stunts non-partisan research on the subject.
The difference between blood transfusion and the "treatments" you talk about is that blood transfusion can actually be studied, because it's real science. It also actually works. As Scott said earlier, legislation designed to ban fake medicines or to enable a regulatory agency to control fake medicines is not the same as denying study.
If, as Rym suggests, chiropractors were imprisoned for practicing their craft, and their clinics were closed, what would be the economic incentive for further research?
Finally, are you suggesting that hypnotherapy, acupuncture, and chiropractic are "revolutionary sciences" that are scientifically valid, work consistently for scientific reasons, and can be studied scientifically, but have not yet had time to gain support?
I wasn't saying anything about flawed studies, I was noting that one of the most reliable of our methods for determining validity, the double blind test, has certain requirements for use that can limit its application in certain fields. (What would you say a good control would be for hypnosis in a double-blind state?) To satisfy the most conservative of the scientific public, a treatment must pass double blind tests before it is considered legitimate. This places things outside the scope of double blind tests in a sort of limbo, which by default is lumped in with quackery.
Your lack of understanding of scientific study clearly shows. I can very easily construct a scientific study to determine the efficacy of hypnotherapy. It's very simple. I have a random sample of people all suffering from some ailment that hypnotherapy claims to be able to treat. One group receives hypnotherapy according to the way hypnotherapy proponents say it should be give. Another group we just pretend to give hypnotherapy. A third group we do nothing. We then observe and see how well each group does.
Anything that exist in the natural (non-supernatural) world, or has an effect on the natural world can be the subject of scientific study. If something can be observed, it can be studied by science. If it can't be observed, it effectively does not exist. To claim that something is real, yet can not be studied by science, is to claim it can not be observed, and therefore that it effectively does not exist.
Although that was the gist of the lawsuit I liked to, and what the courts decided, I was simply suggesting that there is an antagonistic relationship, which stunts non-partisan research on the subject.
If, as Rym suggests, chiropractors were imprisoned for practicing their craft, and their clinics were closed, what would be the economic incentive for further research?
We don't need non-partisan research, or further research. There are limited resources for scientific research. We do not have enough money, time, people, equipment, etc. to study everything that can be studied. We have to choose what gets money, and what does not.
Imagine for a second it is your job to decide which research projects will get funding, and which will not. Let's say you have six research applicants. You can only give funding to three of these people. Which three do you choose?
1. Someone who is investigating whether or not cracking the spine can cure every disease known to man. He needs money to study sick people and tamper with their spines. 2. Someone who claims the earth is flat, and needs a rocket to prove it. 3. Someone who claims that diluting substances in ludicrous amounts of water, their biological effects will be reversed and empowered due to vibrations. 4. Someone who has synthesized a chemical that when ingested by lab rats has shown to decrease their chances of developing a specific type of cancer. 5. Someone who may have found a way to improve appendectomy procedures to reduce pain, decrease recovery times, and shorten hospital stays. 6. Someone who is developing a vaccine against a dangerous and common virus according to well understood immunology theory.
What you are suggesting is that we actually waste time and money on 1, 2 or 3. Clearly, that is moronic. Perhaps we should also research perpetual motion machines instead of hydrogen fuel cells.
I wasn't saying anything about flawed studies, I was noting that one of the most reliable of our methods for determining validity, the double blind test, has certain requirements for use that can limit its application in certain fields. (What would you say a good control would be for hypnosis in a double-blind state?)
You obviously didn't read what I wrote. All of your examples could easily be subjected to double-blind study. The only reason they aren't is that the "practitioners" cannot clearly document their protocols and otherwise refuse to submit to real scientific inquiry.
To satisfy the most conservative of the scientific public, a treatment must pass double blind tests before it is considered legitimate. This places things outside the scope of double blind tests in a sort of limbo, which by default is lumped in with quackery.
Name one valid treatment that actually and clearly works which cannot be submitted to proper evidence-based testing? There's a reason all of those things are dismissed as quackery: they are quackery.
Although that was the gist of the lawsuit I linked to, and what the courts decided, I was simply suggesting that there is an antagonistic relationship, which stunts non-partisan research on the subject.
The non-partisan research was concluded a long time ago, and never was there any reliable evidence of any statistically significant efficacy whatsoever. No further research on the subject is necessary, and in fact it should be discouraged.
If, as Rym suggests, chiropractors were imprisoned for practicing their craft, and their clinics were closed, what would be the economic incentive for further research?
There would be none, nor should there be. Chiropractic is fake. FAKE. IT DOESN'T WORK. AT ALL. IT NEVER HAS. IT NEVER WILL. Further study is pointless in this case.
Your lack of understanding of scientific study clearly shows. I can very easily construct a scientific study to determine the efficacy of hypnotherapy. It's very simple. I have a random sample of people all suffering from some ailment that hypnotherapy claims to be able to treat. One group receives hypnotherapy according to the way hypnotherapy proponents say it should be give. Another group we just pretend to give hypnotherapy. A third group we do nothing. We then observe and see how well each group does.
That would not be a double-blind test. How in particular would you fake hypnotherapy in such a way that the subject believed they were being hypnotised? Perhaps such a thing can be done... If so, I'd be interested in abstracts of the studies and their results.
We don't need non-partisan research, or further research. There are limited resources for scientific research. We do not have enough money, time, people, equipment, etc. to study everything that can be studied. We have to choose what gets money, and what does not.
You and Rym are aware of your financial solvency much more than I am, so I do not begrudge your decisions when it comes to what scientific research you two decide to financially support. The same is true for public funding of research by the government. However, take something such as, say, developing a more cold-resistant strain of marijuana. There are private investors who would be willing to fund such research because they expect it would yield long-term profits. With the sale and use of marijuana illegal, however, this evaporates the long-term profits, and thus also evaporates the private investment.
There would be none, nor should there be. Chiropractic is fake. FAKE. IT DOESN'T WORK. AT ALL. IT NEVER HAS. IT NEVER WILL. Further study is pointless in this case.
That would not be a double-blind test. Additionally, how in particular would you fake hypnotherapy in such a way that the subject believed they were being hypnotised? Perhaps such a thing can be done. If so, I'd be interested in abstracts of the studies and their results.
Obviously you don't understand what double blind means. The people administering the hypnotheraphy will be given directions to follow precisely. They will not know if they have been given the real hypnotherapy directions, or the pretend hypnotherapy directions. The people being treated will also not know if they are being given "real" hypnotherapy or fake hypnotherapy. The fake hypnotherapy can be as simple as waving a pocketwatch back and forth and telling the patient they are getting sleepy. Then telling them they will be healed, and that they should wake up. Take for example this study where some people where given sham acupuncture.
That would not be a double-blind test. How in particular would you fake hypnotherapy in such a way that the subject believed they were being hypnotised?
It's a trivial problem. You give unknowing doctor/researchers different protocols to follow. One set of doctors gets the fake one(s), while another set gets real one. Double-blind.
However, take something such as, say, developing a more cold-resistant strain of marijuana. There are private investors who would be willing to fund such research because they expect it would yield long-term profits. With the sale and use of marijuana illegal, however, this evaporates the long-term profits, and thus also evaporates the private investment.
Marijuana is NOT illegal for a lack of efficacy. Marijuana is illegal for administrative/commercial/moral/social reasons. I happen to disagree with those reasons, and I believe that it should in fact be legal to use.
Marijuana has an effect that can be measured in a double-blind study: the only debate is over the usefulness or possible danger of that effect. Chiropractic/acupuncture/etc, unlike marijuana, do NOT work and are based in fraud and superstition. The debate can't even get past "does it work," because it simply doesn't.
That movement is b.s. that's promoted by people who want the drug to be legal for recreational purposes. They see it as a foot in the door.
We have legal medical marijuana. It's called Marinol. Why would you possibly think that smoking something is a better way to deliver THC than a pill? Of course it isn't. Yet none of the "medical marijuana" proponents seems to think about that. I wonder why? It's because they want the herb to be legal for everyone and this is just an excuse to get there.
That movement is b.s. that's promoted by people who want the drug to be legal for recreational purposes. They see it as a foot in the door.
We have legal medical marijuana. It's calledMarinol.Why would you possibly think that smoking something is a better way to deliver THC than a pill? Of course it isn't. Yet none of the "medical marijuana" proponents seems to think about that. I wonder why? It's because they want the herb to be legal for everyone and this is just an excuse to get there.
I agree entirely. And while I personally would never smoke weed, legal or not, why should it be illegal for recreational purposes? Perhaps a separate thread is needed?
Obviously you don't understand what double blind means. The people administering the hypnotheraphy will be given directions to follow precisely. They will not know if they have been given the real hypnotherapy directions, or the pretend hypnotherapy directions. The people being treated will also not know if they are being given "real" hypnotherapy or fake hypnotherapy. The fake hypnotherapy can be as simple as waving a pocketwatch back and forth and telling the patient they are getting sleepy. Then telling them they will be healed, and that they should wake up. Take for examplethis studywhere some people where given sham acupuncture.
Fair enough. Can you recommend any abstracts where this technique was used? I'd be interested in the results.
Interesting acupuncture story, too. Here is the actual article it's referring to. It all seems on the up and up... except for the semi-standardized bilateral point treatment.
Acupuncture treatment was semistandardized. All patients were treated at what are called basic points (gallbladder 20, 40, or 41 or 42, Du Mai–governing vessel 20, liver 3, San Jiao 3 or 5, extra point Taiyang) bilaterally unless explicit reasons for not doing so were given. Additional points could be chosen individually, according to patient symptoms.
All the standardized points listed are designed to work against one particular configuration known to cause migranes, "wind heat effecting the liver" or however you say it in Chinese. It does not say in the study if all the patients were examined first by acupuncturists to determine if "wind heat effecting the liver" is a genuine diagnosis of their symptoms. This would be equivalent to giving all people who had a cough Nyquil, ignoring the particulars of why they were coughing, and then if desired taking additional steps afterwards. Whether these additional steps were taken in the patients that required it was not listed. All in all, though, a worthy contribution to the field.
Marijuana is NOT illegal for a lack of efficacy.
I agree. However, this does not cancel my original point, that by making something illegal, private investment in research on it dries up.
I agree. However, this does not cancel my original point, that by making something illegal, private investment in research on it dries up.
Actually, there were many companies making everything from petroleum products to paper that were interested in making marijuana illegal.
The decision of the United States Congress to pass the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act was based on hearings, reports and in part on testimony derived from articles in newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst, who had significant financial interests in the timber industry, which manufactured his newsprint.
Marijuana activtist Jack Herer has researched DuPont and in his 1985 book The Emperor Wears No Clothes. Herer concluded Dupont played a large role in the criminalization of cannabis. In 1938, DuPont patented the processes for creating plastics from coal and oil and a new process for creating paper from wood pulp. If hemp would have been largely exploited, Herer believes it would have likely been used to make paper and plastic (nylon) , and may have hurt DuPont’s profits. Andrew Mellon of the Mellon Bank was DuPont's chief financial backer and was also the Secretary of Treasury under the Hoover administration. Mellon appointed Harry J. Anslinger, who later became his nephew-in-law, as the head of the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (FBNDD) and the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN), where Mellon stayed until 1962.
In 1916, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) chief scientists Jason L. Merrill and Lyster H. Dewe created paper made from hemp pulp, which they concluded was "favorable in comparison with those used with pulp wood in USDA Bulletin No. 404." Jack Herer, in the book The Emperor Wears No Clothes summarized the findings of Bulletin No. 404:
USDA Bulletin No. 404, reported that one acre of hemp, in annual rotation over a 20-year period, would produce as much pulp for paper as 4.1 acres of trees being cut down over the same 20-year period. This process would use onlyh 1/4 to 1/7 as much polluting sulfur-based acid chemicals to break down the glue-like lignin that binds the fibers of the pulp, or even none at all using soda ash. The problem of dioxin contamination of rivers is avoided in the hemp paper making process, which does not need to use chlorine bleach (as the wood pulp paper making process requires) but instead safely substitutes hydrogen peroxide in the bleaching process. ... If the new (1916) hemp pulp paper process were legal today, it would soon replace about 70% of all wood pulp paper, including computer printout paper, corrugated boxes and paper bags.
No difference was detected between the acupuncture and the sham acupuncture groups (0.0 days, 95% confidence interval, –0.7 to 0.7 days; P = .96) while there was a difference between the acupuncture group compared with the waiting list group (1.4 days; 95% confidence interval; 0.8-2.1 days; P<.001).
This means that there is no difference between acupuncture and fake acupuncture. There is a difference between either of those two options and doing absolutely nothing. This means that acupuncture works via placebo effect. As such, I'm sure that ANY treatment that you are TOLD is SUPPOSED to work will do something to alleviate symptoms, whether or not it ACTUALLY does anything.
I wasn't talking about whether or not marijuana should be legal for recreational purposes. That's a whole different debate.
I was just pointing out how absurd the "medical marijuana" argument is since we already have THC available in pill form. The idea that it's better to rot your lungs than taking a pill is just too absurd.
As for industrial hemp, I've yet to be convinced that it's a commercially viable crop. It's legal in numerous countries, but you don't see farmers rejoicing there. The EU currently subsidizes hemp farmers - that ought to tell you something. Anyone who thinks that we ought to introduce a crop that we will then be forced to subsidize ought to have their head examined.
I was just pointing out how absurd the "medical marijuana" argument is since we already have THC available in pill form. The idea that it's better to rot your lungs than taking a pill is just too absurd.
No argument from me. It's the same argument I use against all of the bullshit herbal supplements in the store. People say that there are indeed chemicals in the herbs that are effective. I say, why take the herbs then? Just put the chemicals in proper doses in pill form.
I say, why take the herbs then? Just put the chemicals in proper doses in pill form.
It's easier to counterfeit a pill than a herb. Whenever you manufacture and process chemicals, there is an increased chance of contamination.
As a side note: doing any experiment for efficacy is not easy, it requires large samples. There are factors that are important that often aren't tracked simply due to the scale/cost (concombinant medications and complete medical history for examples). It's far easier to tell that a drug isn't a safety risk. I think this is why fake medicine is so successful, no one is going to bother doing these tests due to the expense.
Well, I think herbal Viagra is still a pill, just like conventional Viagra. Calling it "herbal" is a marketing tool just like branding everything under the sun "organic."
ANY sort of process performed on a drug, food, supplement, or whatever, carries with it a chance that SOMETHING will happen. This is why regulatory agencies TEST manufactured products at all stages of production to ensure that they're OK.
If your "herbal" remedy is anything besides a wild grown herb, it carries all the same hazards that a more typical manufactured product would.
Doesn't make what I said any less true. Herbal supplements are manufactured under similar conditions by similarly unscrupulous companies.
I was actually arguing that if a herb is the cure to what ails you, getting a pill of the active chemical is not without its dangers. Herbal supplements/chemical derivatives are not the same as herbs themselves.
Posted By: No, the point is that for some reason many people believe a drug is working if it costs them more money. By the same token many people will also believe something is really bad for them if they are told it is.
Case A we had people being told they were getting a very expensive drug and they felt they were getting results. Case B we had people being told that a substance was very bad for them and they believed it.
In both cases they were getting something that had no effect on them.
Oh, so I guess I can cure cancer by charging people $1K for an sugar pill. Further, I suppose that we can put all the asbestos back into our buildings because the people who contracted mesothelioma only thought they were sick.
No you can't cure cancer with a sugar pill. The point of the study is that the more money someone spends on a pill the more likely they are to believe it is working for them even if it is nothing more than a sugar pill. The other side of it is that if a public opinion campaign to discredit something gains enough momentum everyone will believe it and people will come out of the woodwork claiming to have been injured by use of that drug/chemical/whatever.
A more obvious case is those people who go to a faith healer to be "healed" only to contract a new case of the same disease a month or two later. These people were never healed they just thought they were healed.
Obviously there is a limit to such claims as "this pill will help you get over colds faster" is far easier to hoodwink people with than claims of "this pill will bring sight to the blind." In the first instance every cold is different and those taking the pill may be thinking, "I wonder how much sicker I would feel if I were not taking this pill," even though the pill has no effect. In the second instance being blind and not being blind are not subjective, either the world is dark to you or it is not. (Don't bring up definitions of what is legally blind because all of you know what I am talking about.)
In the case of MSG/Asbestos. Asbestos has been proven to have a direct link to mesothelioma. MSG has been proven to be safe.
IOW: There are far more fools in the world than intelligent people.
Comments
Perhaps another example... Blood transfusion was invented before we came to understand the importance of blood types. As such, basically all early experiments with blood transfusion resulted in death. Restrictive legislation would have limited its practice until it was understood more effectively, which is not unreasonable. Too restrictive legislation would have banned its study altogether, or withdrawn the economic incentive to make such studies.
Not sure if it's related to all this, but there is a book I think you might like. It's called The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn. If you have the opportunity, you should give it a browse.
Also, in the example of acupuncture, the very BASIS of it is fake. The CORE of the idea is made-up. There was NOTHING to justify further study, no verifiable or reproducible evidence of efficacy, and no indication that future results would be different. This is because any legitimate doctor knows that chiropractic is dangerous, ineffective, and based directly on the teachings of a known con man. The hostile environment was and is justified, as there is no evidence of any efficacy and clear evidence of fraud. It has been established for decades upon decades that Chiropractic is sham medicine. There is no justification for any amount of further research whatsoever. It's a fraud, invented by a fraudster, and that's the end of that.
Finally, are you suggesting that hypnotherapy, acupuncture, and chiropractic are "revolutionary sciences" that are scientifically valid, work consistently for scientific reasons, and can be studied scientifically, but have not yet had time to gain support? Oh, so I guess I can cure cancer by charging people $1K for an sugar pill. Further, I suppose that we can put all the asbestos back into our buildings because the people who contracted mesothelioma only thought they were sick.
It seems to me like most people think that chiropractor is just the word for back doctor. Chiropractors are not back doctors. The book of chiropractic says that every illness in humans is caused by a subluxation in the spine. You heard right. According to official chiropractic doctrine, you can cure AIDS by adjusting the spine.
Of course there is evidence that getting massages and such can help with back pain. Many chiropractors use basic massage or physical therapy in combination with their bullshit, and incredibly dangerous, spinal "adjustments". The chiropractor is not adjusting your spine. They are just cracking your vertebrate, the same way you crack your knuckles. This is incredibly dangerous, and can actually cause damage to the spine. Go to any non-bullshit massage therapy class and the first thing they will tell you to absolutely not go anywhere near the spine.
You might say well, the massaging helps, so why not go to the chiropractor? I ask, why go to the bullshit chiropractor when you can get the same shit for free from a friend? Why go to the chiropractor when you can go to the masseuse at the local health club?
I've noticed that many people who defend bullshit like acupuncture, chiropractic, homeopathy, reflexology, hypnotherapy, etc. don't actually know much about what those things are. Study the origins of these things. Study the logic and reasoning behind why these things supposedly work. If you do that, and you still believe, I have a dictionary here, and the word gullible isn't in it.
Anything that exist in the natural (non-supernatural) world, or has an effect on the natural world can be the subject of scientific study. If something can be observed, it can be studied by science. If it can't be observed, it effectively does not exist. To claim that something is real, yet can not be studied by science, is to claim it can not be observed, and therefore that it effectively does not exist. We don't need non-partisan research, or further research. There are limited resources for scientific research. We do not have enough money, time, people, equipment, etc. to study everything that can be studied. We have to choose what gets money, and what does not.
Imagine for a second it is your job to decide which research projects will get funding, and which will not. Let's say you have six research applicants. You can only give funding to three of these people. Which three do you choose?
1. Someone who is investigating whether or not cracking the spine can cure every disease known to man. He needs money to study sick people and tamper with their spines.
2. Someone who claims the earth is flat, and needs a rocket to prove it.
3. Someone who claims that diluting substances in ludicrous amounts of water, their biological effects will be reversed and empowered due to vibrations.
4. Someone who has synthesized a chemical that when ingested by lab rats has shown to decrease their chances of developing a specific type of cancer.
5. Someone who may have found a way to improve appendectomy procedures to reduce pain, decrease recovery times, and shorten hospital stays.
6. Someone who is developing a vaccine against a dangerous and common virus according to well understood immunology theory.
What you are suggesting is that we actually waste time and money on 1, 2 or 3. Clearly, that is moronic. Perhaps we should also research perpetual motion machines instead of hydrogen fuel cells.
Marijuana has an effect that can be measured in a double-blind study: the only debate is over the usefulness or possible danger of that effect. Chiropractic/acupuncture/etc, unlike marijuana, do NOT work and are based in fraud and superstition. The debate can't even get past "does it work," because it simply doesn't.
That movement is b.s. that's promoted by people who want the drug to be legal for recreational purposes. They see it as a foot in the door.
We have legal medical marijuana. It's called Marinol. Why would you possibly think that smoking something is a better way to deliver THC than a pill? Of course it isn't. Yet none of the "medical marijuana" proponents seems to think about that. I wonder why? It's because they want the herb to be legal for everyone and this is just an excuse to get there.
Interesting acupuncture story, too. Here is the actual article it's referring to. It all seems on the up and up... except for the semi-standardized bilateral point treatment.
Acupuncture treatment was semistandardized. All patients were treated at what are called basic points (gallbladder 20, 40, or 41 or 42, Du Mai–governing vessel 20, liver 3, San Jiao 3 or 5, extra point Taiyang) bilaterally unless explicit reasons for not doing so were given. Additional points could be chosen individually, according to patient symptoms.
All the standardized points listed are designed to work against one particular configuration known to cause migranes, "wind heat effecting the liver" or however you say it in Chinese. It does not say in the study if all the patients were examined first by acupuncturists to determine if "wind heat effecting the liver" is a genuine diagnosis of their symptoms. This would be equivalent to giving all people who had a cough Nyquil, ignoring the particulars of why they were coughing, and then if desired taking additional steps afterwards. Whether these additional steps were taken in the patients that required it was not listed. All in all, though, a worthy contribution to the field.
It wasn't the government criminalizing marijuana that stopped "research". It was other companies trying to stop competition.
No difference was detected between the acupuncture and the sham acupuncture groups (0.0 days, 95% confidence interval, –0.7 to 0.7 days; P = .96) while there was a difference between the acupuncture group compared with the waiting list group (1.4 days; 95% confidence interval; 0.8-2.1 days; P<.001).
This means that there is no difference between acupuncture and fake acupuncture. There is a difference between either of those two options and doing absolutely nothing. This means that acupuncture works via placebo effect. As such, I'm sure that ANY treatment that you are TOLD is SUPPOSED to work will do something to alleviate symptoms, whether or not it ACTUALLY does anything.
tl;dr: Acupuncture = placebo.
I was just pointing out how absurd the "medical marijuana" argument is since we already have THC available in pill form. The idea that it's better to rot your lungs than taking a pill is just too absurd.
As for industrial hemp, I've yet to be convinced that it's a commercially viable crop. It's legal in numerous countries, but you don't see farmers rejoicing there. The EU currently subsidizes hemp farmers - that ought to tell you something. Anyone who thinks that we ought to introduce a crop that we will then be forced to subsidize ought to have their head examined.
As a side note: doing any experiment for efficacy is not easy, it requires large samples. There are factors that are important that often aren't tracked simply due to the scale/cost (concombinant medications and complete medical history for examples). It's far easier to tell that a drug isn't a safety risk. I think this is why fake medicine is so successful, no one is going to bother doing these tests due to the expense.
Your name is W. Wrongy Wrongenstein.
Herbal Viagra contains dangerous chemicals
ANY sort of process performed on a drug, food, supplement, or whatever, carries with it a chance that SOMETHING will happen. This is why regulatory agencies TEST manufactured products at all stages of production to ensure that they're OK.
If your "herbal" remedy is anything besides a wild grown herb, it carries all the same hazards that a more typical manufactured product would.
A more obvious case is those people who go to a faith healer to be "healed" only to contract a new case of the same disease a month or two later. These people were never healed they just thought they were healed.
Obviously there is a limit to such claims as "this pill will help you get over colds faster" is far easier to hoodwink people with than claims of "this pill will bring sight to the blind." In the first instance every cold is different and those taking the pill may be thinking, "I wonder how much sicker I would feel if I were not taking this pill," even though the pill has no effect. In the second instance being blind and not being blind are not subjective, either the world is dark to you or it is not. (Don't bring up definitions of what is legally blind because all of you know what I am talking about.)
In the case of MSG/Asbestos. Asbestos has been proven to have a direct link to mesothelioma. MSG has been proven to be safe.
IOW: There are far more fools in the world than intelligent people.