What swear words would Jesus use?

[shanek]

Mmm, quality of food and drug regulations vs. slavery... I dunno know about you, but it seems to me that they're not at all the same thing,

You made a claim that food and drug regulations were good because a lot of governments use them.

'cause you know, slavery is clearly unethical, while food and drug regulations, well, are not unethical.

That is VERY arguable. Especially with hundreds of thousands if not millions (depending on whose statistics you believe) of people DEAD because of it.

 

[Orwell]

You made a claim that food and drug regulations were good because a lot of governments use them.



That is VERY arguable. Especially with hundreds of thousands if not millions (depending on whose statistics you believe) of people DEAD because of it.

Mmm, interesting claim. Mind to back it up?

 

[slingblade]

Nuh-uh--stop weaseling. I'm a student in your class, I've raised my hand and asked you these questions. What's your answer?

I gave you my answer.

But that's the part that's had the biggest effect on us. That's the part that led directly to the FDA.

But that's not why we study The Jungle. You don't know much about education, do you?

After reading his book, you don't think his bias is obvious? You don't think he went in with the conclusion foregone, and looked for anything at all to support it? You have NOTHING to say about his TOTAL LACK OF DIRECT EVIDENCE for it?

No, I don't. Deal with it somehow, won't you?

The age-old cry of the woo-woo...That is NOT a skeptic dictum. That is a FALLACY, called "argument from ignorance." Sagan even mentioned it as such in his Baloney Detection Kit. If you make a claim, you MUST provide the evidence. You DON'T get to say, "There's no evidence, therefore I win."

Stop whining; I DIDN'T say that. Absence of evidence, or amibiguity, doesn't prove the issue EITHER WAY. I don't win or lose. Keep your words in your own mouth and out of mine, thanks.

 

[shanek]

Mmm, interesting claim. Mind to back it up?

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/ruwart2.html
http://www.cato.org/dailys/1-29-97.html

 

[shanek]

I gave you my answer.

No, you didn't. You gave me excuses for not giving me an answer. And you're compounding it in this very post.

Why should a skeptic believe ANYTHING Sinclair had to say in The Jungle?

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Sweet Me on a pogo stick!

~~ Paul

 

[Orwell]

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/ruwart2.html
http://www.cato.org/dailys/1-29-97.html

Sorry, but claims regarding the inefficiency of one american agency doesn't prove your point about "hundreds of thousands if not millions (depending on whose statistics you believe) of people DEAD because of" [food and drug regulations]. All you have managed to prove is that a few people on the right don't like the way how the FDA operates.

But that's our Shanek!

 

[shanek]

Sorry, but claims regarding the inefficiency of one american agency doesn't prove your point about "hundreds of thousands if not millions (depending on whose statistics you believe) of people DEAD because of" [food and drug regulations].

The statistics cited in those articles show that the FDA is responsible for hundreds of thousands if not millions of deaths. That means "hundreds of thousands if not millions (depending on whose statistics you believe) of people DEAD because of it."

 

[Orwell]

The statistics cited in those articles show that the FDA is responsible for hundreds of thousands if not millions of deaths. That means "hundreds of thousands if not millions (depending on whose statistics you believe) of people DEAD because of it."

As usual, Shanek, you pick the anecdotical and try to turn it into the general.
Even if that was true (and probably isn't), not only that would only apply to the US, but it wouldn't take into account the possibility that these rules could still be saving more people than they allegedly kill.

 

[shanek]

Even if that was true (and probably isn't), not only that would only apply to the US,

We're talking about the US; specifically, the FDA created because of the outcry from The Jungle.

but it wouldn't take into account the possibility that these rules could still be saving more people than they allegedly kill.

The statistics account for that.

 

[Orwell]

We're talking about the US; specifically, the FDA created because of the outcry from The Jungle.

If there's a problem with the FDA, fix the FDA. Don't throw the baby out with the bath water.

The statistics account for that.

Neither of the articles you linked present very elaborate general statistics that take into account all the regulatory activity of the FDA.

 

[shanek]

Detailed numbers from Ruwart's calculations, with source (note that 4.7 million is the low-end estimate):

http://www.ruwart.com/AAPS.pdf

 

[slingblade]

We're talking about the US; specifically, the FDA created because of the outcry from The Jungle.

The FDA was not "created" because of that book. It already existed under another name. Its powers and responsibilities were merely augmented by the pure food and drug act.

"The Bureau of Chemistry's name changed to the Food, Drug, and Insecticide Administration in July 1927, when the nonregulatory research functions of the bureau were transferred elsewhere in the department."

http://www.fda.gov/oc/history/historyoffda/default.htm

You can't even get that easily-available bit of information correct.

 

[Mahatma Kane Jeeves]

You're not asking for "evidence", you're asking people to palliate your own ignorance.

Actually, it's not ignorance. Shanek already knows the answers to most of his "questions" because they were already answered in the thread that slingblade was referring to.

Take this question, for example:

Where's the testing of beef bought at the market showing the presence of human meat or mouse droppings? Where are all the widows to say their husband went to work at the meat plant and never came home?

Without any knowledge of the subject, it sounds like a very pertinent question. However, Shanek knows that,
1. Sinclair never claimed that human "meat" was being sold. Sinclair told the story of one man who accidentally fell into the lard rendering vats, and the resulting product was supposedly sold. The Neill/Reynolds report did not confirm this particular story, but it is harped upon to divert attention from the items which were confirmed.
2. There was no test at the time which could distinguish the source of meat once it had been "potted."

All of this, and much more, was covered in the previous thread. The "where are all the widows" bit is just more of the same strawman.

So, why would Shanek ask questions that had already been answered? I can think of two reasons:
1. He simply forgot. In which case he is dismissing Sinclair as a "woo" without even knowing what Sinclair's claims were.
2. He simply doesn't care. Repeating the same objections over and over will eventually convince someone that there must be something to it.

Like I said, it's not ignorance...

The "Of Meat and Myth" article also sounds very impressive if you don't know much about the subject. Early on, the article claims:

Sinclair relied heavily on both his own imagination and on the hearsay of others. He did not even pretend to have actually witnessed the horrendous conditions he ascribed to Chicago packinghouses, nor to have verified them, nor to have derived them from any official records.

This is a bold faced lie. Sinclair spent seven weeks living and working in Packingtown (read the other thread for more info). The misrepresentaions and omissions continue from there. What? You were expecting more from that bastion of historiography "The Freeman"?

Anyhoo, wake me up when Ruwart gets her "FDA guilty of mass murder" theory into an actual medical journal.

 

[CFLarsen]

Funny; Claus's own website also recognizes it as a fallacy:

http://www.skepticreport.com/print/baloney-p.htm


Of course, he's quoting Sagan, but Claus KNOWS it's a fallacy and nonetheless supports it anyway when it suits him to do so.

And you people have the audacity to question MY status as a skeptic?

Yes. We do have the "audacity" to question YOUR "status" as a skeptic.

Because skeptics don't lie, cheat and fake their data.

 

[CFLarsen]

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/ruwart2.html
http://www.cato.org/dailys/1-29-97.html

According to my calculations, about 4.7 million people died over the last 40 years while the life-saving drug they needed was tied up in regulatory red tape!
Source: Rockwell/Ruwart

About 4.7 million Americans.

Where did Ruwart get that number from? We don't know.

For example, when I filed a patent for the treatment of fibrotic liver disease with prostaglandins, an FDA examiner called me personally. "You must encourage your company to develop this product," he insisted. "We lose 100,000 people each year to fibrotic liver disease, and we have absolutely nothing to offer."
Source: Rockwell/Ruwart

100,000 Americans.

Who is this "FDA examiner" and where did he get that number from? We don't know.

People suffer and die as a consequence of the FDA's dithering. Explains Robert Goldberg of Brandeis University: "By a conservative estimate, FDA delays in allowing U.S. marketing of drugs used safely and effectively elsewhere around the world have cost the lives of at least 200,000 Americans over the past 30 years." The agency's casualties include Alzheimer's patients denied access to the drug THA, long available in other nations; those with cardiac conditions, who waited years for FDA approval of beta-blockers; people suffering from kidney cancer, who were prevented from taking Interleukin-2; and AIDS patients, who died while the FDA decided whether drugs such as AZT were cost-effective.
Source: Cato

At least 200,000 Americans.

Where did Goldberg get that number from? We don't know.

But shanek gobbles it up, uncritically, because it suits his political agenda.

And thinks he's a skeptic.

 

[CFLarsen]

The death toll from losing half of our innovations from 1962 to 2003 is somewhere between 4 and 16 million people depending upon the assumptions used. Adding the 4.7 million deaths due to an extra 10 years of development time suggests that as many as one out of three people who died of disease since 1962 may have done so needlessly.
Source: Rockwell/Ruwart

Wow. That's incredibly different estimates. That shows that nobody really knows.

Ruwart is plainly dishonest:

When the AIDS epidemic arose, pharmaceutical companies began to develop treatments. However, most AIDS patients couldn’t wait the 14½ years that it then took to get through the regulatory red tape. A small group of concerned activists hired underground chemists to make the very drugs that we were working on.
Source: Rockwell/Ruwart

This is gross distortion. There were no treatments for AIDS when the epidemic arose. It took years to understand the disease and years to develop medicine.

That's why we have to be very careful around political fanatics. They lie, they cheat, they fake their data.

 

[richardm]

Perhaps I missed the answer to this, but:

Statistics gathered by eight analysts across Canada, and compiled by the Commissioner in the annual report, revealed that 93 out of 180 samples (or 51.7%) of all food products analyzed were found to be adulterated ... 90% of the coffee samples analyzed contained chicory, roasted wheat, peas, or beans, and most pepper samples contained at least 25% roasted flour.

What has changed between then and now that would mean that merchants would not attempt to adulterate food in this manner today, if they were not obliged to by law?

 

[Ed]

There is a logical fallicy here, somewhere.

If x people die because a drug that was ultimately found to be safe and effective was tied up in the regulatory process it begs the question of the potential impact of drugs that were not effective and dangerous that were ultimately never released. Of course a drug that works could have saved lives if it were released earlier, that is just hindsight but what about those that don't. This seems like a highly dishonest argument.

 

[shanek]

The FDA was not "created" because of that book. It already existed under another name.

The Food and Drug Act came about as a direct result of the outcry from The Jungle. Read your history.