AnnoyingPony
Critical Thinker
- Joined
- Nov 12, 2010
- Messages
- 364
Okay, so just now there was a special on Dateline about Suzanne Somers titled "Suzanne Somers: A Dose of Controversy." I only walked in about halfway, but it was basically about how she believes that the "medical establishment" is suppressing the "truth about cancer cures" and that you can cure cancer through some dangerous, unproven quack methods.
Nicholas Gonzalez was there. He claims that if you send him your hair and pay to have a test done on it, then he'llgive sell you a dietary regimen that requires you take two hundred pills a day and coffee enemas.
There was also a Polish-American doctor with a name I can't remember (it started with a B) who gives "antineoplastins" to his patients to "cure" cancer. It was obvious that he was trying to dodge all questions about his woo's "effectiveness." For example, in one interview he claimed that he had cured "hundreds of patients." When the interviewer asked how many that was out of all the patient's he's seen, he refused to answer (but eventually begrudgingly admitted that he's seen 14,000 patients over his lifetime).
At that point I was thirsting for the opportunity to rip this nonsense to shreds, preferably while my family was there. But Dateline was already twelve steps ahead of me, and they showed some clips from leading experts in an attempt to get a "balanced" opinion on the stuff. The thing is, I felt that instead of actually doing any debunking, they just got the doctors to say "No, it doesn't work," and move on. No scientific evidence. No citations of studies done on these treatments.
Basically, the average segment of the show ran like this:
Suzanne Somers: I think that Doctor (insert name here) is a miracle worker!
Interviewer: But how come?
Suzanne Somers: Because he stands up to the evil, greed-driven medical establishment!
(Cue narration introducing Doctor What's-His-Face, and testimonies from like one or two people he's "saved".)
Interviewer: How do we know your treatment works?
Doctor What's-His-Face: Well, I've treated many patients and they say it works. Hypothesis proven! My super-radical new treatment works!
(Cue narration introducing actual doctor.)
Real Doctor: No, it doesn't.
Doctor What's-His-Face: Yes, it does.
Real Doctor: No, it doesn't!
Doctor What's-His-Face: Yes, it does! You're just treating me this way because you're a member of the big evil medical establishment! You want to suppress the truth that I'm bringing to the world! I AM GOD! I AM THE SAVIOR OF ALL MANKIND!! AHAHAHA.... oh, I'm sorry, I got carried away there. But I am, however, single-handedly bringing about a medical revolution.
Suzanne Somers: Yeah! The reason the medical establishment wants to suppress a poor, innocent man like Doctor What's-His-Face is because they're jealous! Jealous, jealous, jealous!
The really sad part is that whenever the real doctors came on screen, my dad was basically shouting over the whole thing and talking back to the freaking TV, saying things like, "You work for the medical establishment!" and "Shut up, you two-faced eugenicist liar! It's your job to conduct smear campaigns against alternative medicine!" and "The peer review process is controlled by Big Pharma!"
(sigh...)
Anyway, discuss.
Nicholas Gonzalez was there. He claims that if you send him your hair and pay to have a test done on it, then he'll
There was also a Polish-American doctor with a name I can't remember (it started with a B) who gives "antineoplastins" to his patients to "cure" cancer. It was obvious that he was trying to dodge all questions about his woo's "effectiveness." For example, in one interview he claimed that he had cured "hundreds of patients." When the interviewer asked how many that was out of all the patient's he's seen, he refused to answer (but eventually begrudgingly admitted that he's seen 14,000 patients over his lifetime).
At that point I was thirsting for the opportunity to rip this nonsense to shreds, preferably while my family was there. But Dateline was already twelve steps ahead of me, and they showed some clips from leading experts in an attempt to get a "balanced" opinion on the stuff. The thing is, I felt that instead of actually doing any debunking, they just got the doctors to say "No, it doesn't work," and move on. No scientific evidence. No citations of studies done on these treatments.
Basically, the average segment of the show ran like this:
Suzanne Somers: I think that Doctor (insert name here) is a miracle worker!
Interviewer: But how come?
Suzanne Somers: Because he stands up to the evil, greed-driven medical establishment!
(Cue narration introducing Doctor What's-His-Face, and testimonies from like one or two people he's "saved".)
Interviewer: How do we know your treatment works?
Doctor What's-His-Face: Well, I've treated many patients and they say it works. Hypothesis proven! My super-radical new treatment works!
(Cue narration introducing actual doctor.)
Real Doctor: No, it doesn't.
Doctor What's-His-Face: Yes, it does.
Real Doctor: No, it doesn't!
Doctor What's-His-Face: Yes, it does! You're just treating me this way because you're a member of the big evil medical establishment! You want to suppress the truth that I'm bringing to the world! I AM GOD! I AM THE SAVIOR OF ALL MANKIND!! AHAHAHA.... oh, I'm sorry, I got carried away there. But I am, however, single-handedly bringing about a medical revolution.
Suzanne Somers: Yeah! The reason the medical establishment wants to suppress a poor, innocent man like Doctor What's-His-Face is because they're jealous! Jealous, jealous, jealous!
The really sad part is that whenever the real doctors came on screen, my dad was basically shouting over the whole thing and talking back to the freaking TV, saying things like, "You work for the medical establishment!" and "Shut up, you two-faced eugenicist liar! It's your job to conduct smear campaigns against alternative medicine!" and "The peer review process is controlled by Big Pharma!"
(sigh...)
Anyway, discuss.
