Penn & Teller on Alternative Medicine

Amorelli said:
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.
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I am certainly glad that you were not one of my parents:

1. I probably would not have made it past the age of 2, when an internal infection threatened my life and I was saved only by antibiotics. (How is that not a cure?)

2. I would still be in a full leg brace because you would certainly would not have opted for radiation therapy which destroyed the tumor in my knee, finally allowing me to walk normally.

3. As I hobbled around, I would probably have succumbed to a fatal asthma attack when the bee-pollen you were giving me failed to control my symptoms like the albuterol that my pediatrician prescribed. And I would certainly not be symptom-free, as I am today due to the miracle of corticosteioid inhalers. You are correct, I am not cured, but I might as well be. I would much rather take 4 puffs a day of "synthetic medicine" than suffer the terrifying episodes of gasping for air, not knowing whether I would survive, as I have experienced in the past.

Get real Amorelli, since the dawn of scientific medicine, life spans and quality of life have increased enormously, while millenia of "natural cures" had no such effect.

IXP

p.s.

About hospital deaths: Yes there are many deaths caused by doctor's mistakes, just as there are many deaths caused by drivers mistakes. But consider this: How many of these people would have lived long enough to suffer the accidental death had it not been for past successful treatements?

(edited for spelling and grammar)
 
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Greyman said:
I agreed Penn and Teller make sweeping statements about the whole industry based on just a few samples, but the show is comedical entertainment not an industry review.

As with anything, one shouldn't just take the word of any one source without verification from other sources. That is educational point brought to the table by Penn and Teller's Bulls**t. If one thinks that P&T are wrong maybe they'll research and find out on thier own.

-Greyman
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See, I agree with you on the comedic content of ********. It's not meant to *prove* the point. My hope is that Penn and Teller want you to think about it and do your own research into it, instead of just buying into whatever you read in the paper.
 
The_Fire said:
I can't stop thinking about how many people would have died if synthetic medicines WEREN'T used.....
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I'd be stone dead for sure. So thats one (Type 1 diabetes for 25+ yrs). Anyone wanna take a full count? ;)
 
asmodean said:
I'd be stone dead for sure. So thats one (Type 1 diabetes for 25+ yrs). Anyone wanna take a full count? ;)
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But there an Alternative Cure nobody wants you to know about for that!

(I think you have to become alkaline or something....)

I seem to recall in High School biology that two very tenuous conditions for metabolism were temperature and pH. Both must operate in a very narrow band, or enzymic action ceases.

The primary reason for our intake of oxygen, in fact, is to regulate pH in our blood stream.

Why is it so much harder for the alternative medicine folks to believe THAT, than it is to believe they can cure diabetes with a cocktail?
 
macgyver said:
But there an Alternative Cure nobody wants you to know about for that!

(I think you have to become alkaline or something....)
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An excellent plan then, with only two minor drawbacks.

1) if you become alkaline you die.

and

2) If you go alkaline you die.

Now, I know this is technically only ONE flaw, but I felt it was such an important one it was worth mentioning twice. =)

macgyver said:
Why is it so much harder for the alternative medicine folks to believe THAT, than it is to believe they can cure diabetes with a cocktail?
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Good question. But considering these are the same kind of people who believe coffee enemas and a strict carrot diet will cure any form of cancer, or that tap wat.. ehrm, homoeopatic remedies will cure everything from halitosis to hangover I am not suprised. As long as it isn't Big Evil Pharma(tm) or Natural(tm) or Non-Synthetic(tm) they'll gobble it up.
 
asmodean said:
An excellent plan then, with only two minor drawbacks.

1) if you become alkaline you die.

and

2) If you go alkaline you die.

Now, I know this is technically only ONE flaw, but I felt it was such an important one it was worth mentioning twice. =)
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&%$@ Red Dwarf Geek! ;)
 
CurtC said:
One statistic that should be counted, and charged against the alt-med practitioners, is all the people who get a serious, life-threatening disease such as cancer, and try to have it treated with alt-med. By the time they turn to real doctors, it's too late. It would be instructive if these deaths were to be counted.
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I just recently reread James Herriot's "All Creatures Great and Small" series about an English veterinarian practicing in Yorkshire. Dr. Herriot relates several stories involving a farmer who completely distrusts veterinarians as worthless. This farmer would use "natural" and "folk" remedies in an attempt to cure all manner of serious diseases, finally calling in the veterinarian when he'd run out of options. At that point, of course, there was little or nothing the vet could do but put the animal out of its misery. And, of course, this only served to reinforce the farmer's view of the incompetance of veterinarians.

Unfortunately, in too many cases, alternative medicine works the same way. Alternative medicine draws people away from conventional medicine until it is too late for treatment of any kind to be efficatious. Sadly, instead of these deaths being counted AGAINST alternative medicine, they end up a statistic reflecting on EVIL CONVENTIONAL MEDICINE.
 
macgyver said:
I missed that, and I'm a Red Dwarf fan..

explaination?
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Cat: What are we waiting for, why don't we drop the defensive shields?
Kryten: An excellent plan, sir, with only two minor drawbacks: One, we don't have any defensive shields and two, we don't have any defensive shields. Now I know technically speaking that's only one drawback, but I thought it was such a big one, it was worth mentioning twice.

(From the "Holoship" episode)

I laughed at that one 'til I puked, I really did.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Red_Dwarf#.22Holoship.22
 
Bradk3 said:
I just recently reread James Herriot's "All Creatures Great and Small" series about an English veterinarian practicing in Yorkshire.
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Loved that series, excellent TV adaptation as well.

He did occasionally get to show off the powers of "science", such as miraculous cures by injecting calcium, or potassium permanganate crystals in a wound with clouds of purple smoke to wow the audience (while disinfecting the wound)...

But sadly, your main point is absolutely correct. Just this morning our local AM talk radio station was announcing their guest - a "Dr." who would tell us all about the wonderful homeopathic treatments for you and your family this summer....

I can't help but worry that some child out there will get tap water instead of adrenaline after being stung by a bee or wasp, and dying of anaphylaxis...
 
Bradk3 said:
Cat: What are we waiting for, why don't we drop the defensive shields?
Kryten: An excellent plan, sir, with only two minor drawbacks: One, we don't have any defensive shields and two, we don't have any defensive shields. Now I know technically speaking that's only one drawback, but I thought it was such a big one, it was worth mentioning twice.
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Ahhh...now I remember...very funny.

I blame my memory on my kids...I believe that the percentage of lost memory is equivalent to the sum of your children's ages...
 
macgyver said:
Loved that series, excellent TV adaptation as well.
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Okay, I'm seriously guilty of derailing this thread, but...

Those books are the reason I'm as skeptical as I am. In a round-about way.

After reading them, as an impressionable young man, I decided that being a vet was the way to go. Off to college I went, with my optimism and rose-colored glasses, to study Zoology. I got a job working for a vet and, about two years later realized that I didn't want to deal with all the crap vets have to deal with (pun intended), so now I'm a computer engineer... :boggled:

In the meantime, I got a solid grounding in science, biology, evolution, et al, which has served me well to this day and, eventually, lead me here. So, thanks Dr. Herriot!

macgyver said:
He did occasionally get to show off the powers of "science", such as miraculous cures by injecting calcium, or potassium permanganate crystals in a wound with clouds of purple smoke to wow the audience (while disinfecting the wound)...
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Ah, the miracle of science!

Perhaps there's a niche market there that conventional medicine can exploit. Perhaps, if doctors would concentrate on making ordinary run-of-the-mill treatments more stunning, it would take the wind out of the alternative medicine sails.

"Oh yeah? Well, can your chiropractor do... THIS?"
*poof*​
(Wound dissapears in a cloud of purple smoke)


macgyver said:
But sadly, your main point is absolutely correct. Just this morning our local AM talk radio station was announcing their guest - a "Dr." who would tell us all about the wonderful homeopathic treatments for you and your family this summer....

I can't help but worry that some child out there will get tap water instead of adrenaline after being stung by a bee or wasp, and dying of anaphylaxis...
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Me too. It won't be my child, but I worry just the same.
 
As my brother-in-law once put it, you never hear of "emergency alternative medical technicians," do you? Naturopathic paramedics examining a shooting victim and stating "what this man needs is marjoram, and plenty of it!"
(He may have been quoting some comedian, I don't remember.)

Oh, I loved James Herriot. I think I picked up a fair amount from those books, especially my first appreciation of the difference antibiotics made.
 
Euromutt said:
As my brother-in-law once put it, you never hear of "emergency alternative medical technicians," do you? Naturopathic paramedics examining a shooting victim and stating "what this man needs is marjoram, and plenty of it!"
(He may have been quoting some comedian, I don't remember.)
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You do, however, hear of Scientologists showing up at disaster sites to point at people....

that's pretty close isn't it?
 
Niki said:
See, I agree with you on the comedic content of ********. It's not meant to *prove* the point. My hope is that Penn and Teller want you to think about it and do your own research into it, instead of just buying into whatever you read in the paper.
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Welcome, Niki, to the board!

Not many rental places for American TV shows over here, so I'll have to wait a bit before I can see the current season.
 
bignickel said:
Welcome, Niki, to the board!

Not many rental places for American TV shows over here, so I'll have to wait a bit before I can see the current season.
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No need to wait. Get hip to bittorent (uTorrent.com) and then download the series from mininova.org.

It's all legal too! (just don't download any movies or music...)
 
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