I less than three logic
Graduate Poster
- Joined
- Dec 5, 2005
- Messages
- 1,463
This is a follow up for any of you who might be taking yrreg seriously. I’ve taken a few days to form some rational responses free of aggravation. I find yrreg’s arrogance reinforced by his ignorance to be very frustrating.
Sorry if this is a little long-winded.
Is the National Council Against Health Fraud (NCAHF) national in scope and actually a council? Yes, it has 20 board members from 13 states. Is the information found on its site trustworthy? Yes, the site has been independently certified to provide academically honest and trustworthy health information by HON. (I’ll address HON later.) Should this convince you to accept the NCAHF as an authority on health information? No, you’ll have to decide that yourself. The HON code only says that the health information on the site is written by qualified personnel, provides proper citations for data presented, and supports it claims with appropriate, balanced evidence. Keep in mind that the NCAHF is primarily concerned with identifying fraud, and you may interpret that as you wish.
The Health on the Net Foundation (HON) is an internationally recognized organization that has been granted special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations (ECOSOC). Frankly, I find yrreg’s questioning of HON without looking into it proof of his willful ignorance on the matter.
Here is a link to the ECOSOC site. More specifically here is a link to the guidelines for association between NGO’s and the UN. (Warning: the guidelines are in PDF format so may take some time to load.)
Here is an interesting paper on why an organization like HON is needed and a little about why it was created.
Also, my statement earlier about the NIH not subscribing to HON code was misleading. While it is true that the site www.nih.gov is not certified by HON, it has no reason to since it doesn’t provide any health information directly. It only links to separate more specific institutes’ web pages. Each of which is in fact certified by HON. I apologize for the misleading information; I was too quick to jump to conclusions in my last post.
Now, back to the topic of acupuncture as an acceptable option for treating medical conditions; here is another paper that was published just this month, February 2006. In the paper it says:
“Acupuncture is an acceptable option for dealing with medical complaints, if you don't have enough money for treatment and medication in conventional scientific medicine, or if conventional scientific medicine has given up on you.”
This is how yrreg originally phrased his commit. However, he later stated this was just his opinion. This statement is quite wrong and misleading. If you are at all concerned about evidence then at best you could make a statement like:
“Acupuncture is a still controversial option for dealing with subjective symptoms associated with certain medical conditions.”
There is a big difference between medical conditions and symptoms associated with them. There is zero evidence that acupuncture successful in treating any medical conditions. All evidence supporting acupuncture is for symptoms, more specifically only subjective symptoms. There is zero evidence for acupuncture being successful with objective symptoms. I am unsure if yrreg was intending on being deceitful or if he didn’t know or consider the difference between medical conditions and symptoms.
Let me provide an example.
Being infected with Hepatitis C is a medical condition. There is zero evidence to support acupuncture being able to cure or even delay the progress of Hepatitis C. The virus causes liver inflammation and can lead to cirrhosis of the liver. These are objective symptoms of a Hepatitis C infection. They will happen regardless of what you think or how you percieve them. There is also zero evidence that acupuncture can treat these symptoms in any way. The virus can also produce symptoms such as fatigue, headache, sore muscles, or abdominal pain. These are subjective symptoms. They will vary greatly between people and even within the same person depending on things like mood or how they percieve the symptom. There is evidence to support acupuncture in treating these type symptoms. However, the evidence is rather inconclusive right now, but evidence is growing that shows acupuncture only provides a placebo response to relieve these symptoms. Also, you should note that while acupuncture has no evidence to support the treatment of Hepatitis C, it can spread the infection if proper sanitation practices are not conducted.
As I pointed out above, there is growing evidence showing that acupuncture may be producing only a placebo response. Perhaps a thread about the ethical ramifications of using placebos to treat subjective symptoms might provide a good discussion. My opinion is that placebos are not an acceptable way of treating subjective symptoms.
I expect yrreg to accuse me of breaking some of his imaginary rules to attempt to discredit this post. Perhaps he will start challenging authorities, but authority just comes down to which you would belive over another. I have no problem accepting papers written by qualified personnel, with proper citations for data presented, and claims that are supported with appropriate evidence over yrreg’s anecdotes for acupuncture.
Sorry if this is a little long-winded.
Is the National Council Against Health Fraud (NCAHF) national in scope and actually a council? Yes, it has 20 board members from 13 states. Is the information found on its site trustworthy? Yes, the site has been independently certified to provide academically honest and trustworthy health information by HON. (I’ll address HON later.) Should this convince you to accept the NCAHF as an authority on health information? No, you’ll have to decide that yourself. The HON code only says that the health information on the site is written by qualified personnel, provides proper citations for data presented, and supports it claims with appropriate, balanced evidence. Keep in mind that the NCAHF is primarily concerned with identifying fraud, and you may interpret that as you wish.
The Health on the Net Foundation (HON) is an internationally recognized organization that has been granted special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations (ECOSOC). Frankly, I find yrreg’s questioning of HON without looking into it proof of his willful ignorance on the matter.
Here is a link to the ECOSOC site. More specifically here is a link to the guidelines for association between NGO’s and the UN. (Warning: the guidelines are in PDF format so may take some time to load.)
Here is an interesting paper on why an organization like HON is needed and a little about why it was created.
Also, my statement earlier about the NIH not subscribing to HON code was misleading. While it is true that the site www.nih.gov is not certified by HON, it has no reason to since it doesn’t provide any health information directly. It only links to separate more specific institutes’ web pages. Each of which is in fact certified by HON. I apologize for the misleading information; I was too quick to jump to conclusions in my last post.
Now, back to the topic of acupuncture as an acceptable option for treating medical conditions; here is another paper that was published just this month, February 2006. In the paper it says:
The abstract may be viewed on PubMed here, and the full paper here.
“Acupuncture is an acceptable option for dealing with medical complaints, if you don't have enough money for treatment and medication in conventional scientific medicine, or if conventional scientific medicine has given up on you.”
This is how yrreg originally phrased his commit. However, he later stated this was just his opinion. This statement is quite wrong and misleading. If you are at all concerned about evidence then at best you could make a statement like:
“Acupuncture is a still controversial option for dealing with subjective symptoms associated with certain medical conditions.”
There is a big difference between medical conditions and symptoms associated with them. There is zero evidence that acupuncture successful in treating any medical conditions. All evidence supporting acupuncture is for symptoms, more specifically only subjective symptoms. There is zero evidence for acupuncture being successful with objective symptoms. I am unsure if yrreg was intending on being deceitful or if he didn’t know or consider the difference between medical conditions and symptoms.
Let me provide an example.
Being infected with Hepatitis C is a medical condition. There is zero evidence to support acupuncture being able to cure or even delay the progress of Hepatitis C. The virus causes liver inflammation and can lead to cirrhosis of the liver. These are objective symptoms of a Hepatitis C infection. They will happen regardless of what you think or how you percieve them. There is also zero evidence that acupuncture can treat these symptoms in any way. The virus can also produce symptoms such as fatigue, headache, sore muscles, or abdominal pain. These are subjective symptoms. They will vary greatly between people and even within the same person depending on things like mood or how they percieve the symptom. There is evidence to support acupuncture in treating these type symptoms. However, the evidence is rather inconclusive right now, but evidence is growing that shows acupuncture only provides a placebo response to relieve these symptoms. Also, you should note that while acupuncture has no evidence to support the treatment of Hepatitis C, it can spread the infection if proper sanitation practices are not conducted.
As I pointed out above, there is growing evidence showing that acupuncture may be producing only a placebo response. Perhaps a thread about the ethical ramifications of using placebos to treat subjective symptoms might provide a good discussion. My opinion is that placebos are not an acceptable way of treating subjective symptoms.
I expect yrreg to accuse me of breaking some of his imaginary rules to attempt to discredit this post. Perhaps he will start challenging authorities, but authority just comes down to which you would belive over another. I have no problem accepting papers written by qualified personnel, with proper citations for data presented, and claims that are supported with appropriate evidence over yrreg’s anecdotes for acupuncture.
