Penn & Teller on Alternative Medicine

[Amorelli]

This is just more conspiracy theory NONSENSE. Many, many alt-meds have been researched and found to show no efficacy. This process costs money. "Big Pharma" would love to see "natural" methods work, as such methods would cost them even less overhead and give greater profit.

No, alt-med would lose them money because they generally cost a lot less money and you don't need to buy the meds from them because it's natural. They would have a lot more competition from the little guys doing the same thing - selling natural meds. Synthetic meds are very unhealthy in most cases and so maybe they prove to suppress the symptoms (you'll feel cured), they don't cure it and then you can also get the side effects....in some cases death.

Anyways I wasn't trying to get into this argument. I was pointing out the hypocrisy of doctors bashing natural meds. Even if they aren't the leading cause of death, think about every year planes crashing into buildings causing 300,000 to die. That's 9/11 100x. Why isn't this reported??? I think before doctors go and bash natural meds, they need to fix their own ◊◊◊◊.

 

[thaiboxerken]

No, amorelli, it's a lie.

 

[thaiboxerken]

No, alt-med would lose them money because they generally cost a lot less money and you don't need to buy the meds from them because it's natural. They would have a lot more competition from the little guys doing the same thing - selling natural meds. Synthetic meds are very unhealthy in most cases and so maybe the prove to suppress the symptoms, the don't cure it and then you can also get the side effects....in some cases death.

You are an idiot. The Alt-Med industry brings in more $$$ than "big pharma". You have no evidence to support your idiotic notion that synthetic meds are very unhealthy. Real medicine is what has led us to have the longest human life expectancy in recorded history. Now, STFU and go crawl back into the ditch.

 

[Rustle]

Personally, I wouldn't compare medical error deaths to any 1 single cause, such as say cardiovascular disease. Those deaths are the result of error while treating ALL forms of disease. Can we get a comparison of deaths from cardiovascular disease to deaths due to error cause WHILE TREATING CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE?

I will, however, yield the point that not many accidental deaths have been caused by the administering of tap water (as in homeopathy).

I would LOVE to know how many people have died as a result of choosing chiropractic, homeopathy, magnet therapy (god that hurts just to say "magnet.. Therapy", faith healing, psychic surgery, or any other "alternative medicine" over estabilished evil "big pharma" "government conspiracy" "doctors want you sick OMG!!" mainstream medicine. THAT statistic, I would LOVE to know.

 

[case sensitive]

No, alt-med would lose them money because they generally cost a lot less money and you don't need to buy the meds from them because it's natural. They would have a lot more competition from the little guys doing the same thing - selling natural meds. Synthetic meds are very unhealthy in most cases and so maybe they prove to suppress the symptoms (you'll feel cured), they don't cure it and then you can also get the side effects....in some cases death.

Do you think those magnets work? Are Penn and Teller lying about the magnet miracles?

 

[Rustle]

Synthetic meds are very unhealthy in most cases ...

Are you for real? I think you're just bored at work and trolling.

 

[geni]

The real people you need to be afraid of is the synthetic pill popping doctors. All they recommend are pills that hide the symptoms and don't cure it. Then after that you are a repeat customer (yay!). So now you are suppressing the symptoms and letting the real problem get worse, and then you also have these pills that....could cause DEATH! (you see them on the commercials with ALL the side effects that are probably worse than what the symptoms you're trying to suppress are)

The problem with this conspirocy theory is socalised medicine. dovctors don't have much of an insentive to try and get patients to come back (indeed there is a mad rush to sign up students who they are unlikely ever to see). Yet they still use pills to a fair degree.

 

[Amorelli]

Do you think those magnets work? Are Penn and Teller lying about the magnet miracles?

I'm not arguing whether it works. I'm saying its hypocrisy of the doctors to say one thing doesn't work while their practises cause hundreds of thousands deaths and illness every year.

 

[Greyman]

Well if you googled "iatrogenic deaths" in google and if you looked into the links there then you would see studies that show a lot more deaths and thats what I was looking at (maybe their wrong). Also I went to your link and then went to the website and looked at their updated PDF file for 2006 patient safety study and the number went up to 300,000 and this is only including medicare beneficiaries.

Which site? I can't seem to locate the PDF, the name of the PDF file would help also.

 

[case sensitive]

I'm not arguing whether it works. I'm saying its hypocrisy of the doctors to say one thing doesn't work while their practises cause hundreds of thousands deaths and illness every year.

So it is wrong for a car manufacturer to say a broomstick doesn't work for transportation because cars causes hundreds of thousands of death and illnesses every year?

It has nothing to do with it. What are the doctors suppose to say when they know it doesn't work?

 

[geni]

No, alt-med would lose them money because they generally cost a lot less money and you don't need to buy the meds from them because it's natural. They would have a lot more competition from the little guys doing the same thing - selling natural meds.

Ecomonies of scale and difficulties with quality control suggest otherwise. Asprin is trivial to make but for some reason people don't make their own.

Synthetic meds are very unhealthy in most cases and so maybe they prove to suppress the symptoms (you'll feel cured), they don't cure it and then you can also get the side effects....in some cases death.

The most toxic substance on earth (botulism toxin) is natural (in fact all of the really toxic stuff is natural).

 

[Amorelli]

Are you for real? I think you're just bored at work and trolling.

Can you prove the drugs and the medical industry don't cause hundreds of thousands of deaths and injury?

 

[case sensitive]

Can you prove the drugs and the medical industry don't cause hundreds of thousands of deaths and injury?

Of course people die because of problems with medication and bad doctors and so on. But they also help a lot of people. Magnets doesn't. If a pill doesn't work, it is not suppose to be sold as medicine. If a magnet doesn't work... Guess what...?

 

[Amorelli]

So it is wrong for a car manufacturer to say a broomstick doesn't work for transportation because cars causes hundreds of thousands of death and illnesses every year?

It has nothing to do with it. What are the doctors suppose to say when they know it doesn't work?

Their supposed to say both sides of the case. So maybe magnets don't work but with is the death toll? How many deaths does car accidents cause in the US? i'm talking stats for the US through this whole thread btw. Anyways I looked at stats for 2003 car accidents and it was much less than hosp deaths.

For grey your link brought me to healthgrades.com and I went down a little and you can see the study under healthgrades research.

 

[Amorelli]

Ecomonies of scale and difficulties with quality control suggest otherwise. Asprin is trivial to make but for some reason people don't make their own.



The most toxic substance on earth (botulism toxin) is natural (in fact all of the really toxic stuff is natural).

Lol I just looked up botulism toxin and it can be used to heal. Anyways can you prove the most natural stuff is toxic? Becaus Native Americans and chinese, Japanese...ect have been using natural methods for thousands of years. If something is toxic I think they would notice it sometime along the line.

 

[Jaggy Bunnet]

Lol I just looked up botulism toxin and it can be used to heal. Anyways can you prove the most natural stuff is toxic? Becaus Native Americans and chinese, Japanese...ect have been using natural methods for thousands of years. If something is toxic I think they would notice it sometime along the line.

Like to compare life expectancy before and after the development of real medicine?

Why were people not living longer, healthier lives when they only had "natural" treatments?

 

[Greyman]

Well if you googled "iatrogenic deaths" in google and if you looked into the links there then you would see studies that show a lot more deaths and thats what I was looking at (maybe their wrong). Also I went to your link and then went to the website and looked at their updated PDF file for 2006 patient safety study and the number went up to 300,000 and this is only including medicare beneficiaries.

Ok I found the PDF. http://www.healthgrades.com/media/dms/pdf/PatientSafetyInAmericanHospitalsStudy2006.pdf

1. This is the study refered to in the first link I posted. It states;

...snip...

HealthGrades used AHRQ’s PSI Version 2.1, Revision 3a February 2005 software application1 and research
by Zhan and Miller,7 to study the safety of inpatient hospital care based on 16 of the total 20 patient safety
indicators (excluding four PSIs related to obstetrics) among Medicare beneficiaries in the U.S. from 2002 to
2004. The 16 PSIs we studied are listed in Appendix B. In addition, using the rates calculated for 13 of the
16 PSIs studied, we also calculated an overall patient safety score for each state and hospital to identify the best.

In our study, we found:

- Approximately 1.24 million total patient safety incidents occurred in almost 40 million
hospitalizations in the Medicare population. These incidents were associated with $9.3 billion of
excess cost during 2002 through 2004. For the second year in a row, patient safety incidents have
increased—up from 1.14 and 1.18 million reported in HealthGrades’ First and Second Annual Patient
Safety in American Hospitals studies, respectively.

- Of the 304,702 deaths that occurred among patients who developed one or more patient
safety incidents, 250,246 were potentially preventable.

- Medicare beneficiaries that developed one or more patient
safety incidents had a one-in-four chance of dying during the hospitalization during 2002-2004.
This rate remains unchanged since our first study released July 2003.

...snip...

2. The 304,702 deaths are from a period spanning from 2002-2004. 3 years not 1.

3. This is not just doctors making mistakes either it is everyone and everything at the hospital causing incidents that may or may not have been preventable.

Edit - added point 3 also to remove restatement of a point.

 

[geni]

Lol I just looked up botulism toxin and it can be used to heal. Anyways can you prove the most natural stuff is toxic?

Sure. Everything (with the posible exception of helium) is toxic it just depends on the dose.

Becaus Native Americans and chinese, Japanese...ect have been using natural methods for thousands of years. If something is toxic I think they would notice it sometime along the line.

Not really. When you have a fairly short life expectancy it is a bit hard to tell why someone died. I doubt they had a yellow card system. Incerdentaly could you define natural.

 

[Amorelli]

Of course people die because of problems with medication and bad doctors and so on. But they also help a lot of people. Magnets doesn't. If a pill doesn't work, it is not suppose to be sold as medicine. If a magnet doesn't work... Guess what...?

Well just because Magnets may not work, lets not write off the whole natural meds world. The synthetic meds may help people with their symptoms but they don't cure. What does cure is changing your lifestyle because obviously you did something to bring on the illness. You can't just pop a pill and keep doing what you're doing and think it will go away. Natural meds work with the body to cure, but you can't just think that will work either.

People are to relient on pills to help them. People need to take responsibility for their body and eat healthy and work out. You can't pop a pill (synthetic or natural) and think now you can eat garbage and drink garbage (pizza, soda, gatorade...ect).

So maybe those natural meds didn't work in the studies but those test subjects probably kept living their junk food, lazy lifestyle that got them sick to begin with.

 

[case sensitive]

Their supposed to say both sides of the case. So maybe magnets don't work but with is the death toll? How many deaths does car accidents cause in the US? i'm talking stats for the US through this whole thread btw. Anyways I looked at stats for 2003 car accidents and it was much less than hosp deaths.

For grey your link brought me to healthgrades.com and I went down a little and you can see the study under healthgrades research.

You mean if you make a show about flying broomsticks and you ask a Volvo manufacturer if a broomstick can fly. He/she is suppose to say Volvo cars causes many more deaths than broomsticks.

Why would the doctors in Penn and Teller's show say anything about deaths in hospitals? If they make a show about hospitals and bad doctors. Yes then they will talk about that and it is an important issue. But has nothing to do with Bullsh-t.