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The $100B per year back pain industry is mostly a hoax

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221–230 of 348 posts

Re: The $100B per year back pain industry is mostly a hoax

#221
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Digging the joke, but is there any scientific truth to this statement? > It was designed to be horizontal. Then people came along and used it vertical. Wasn't meant for that.

It's more accurate to say that the vast majority of tetrapods evolved their spines to support use parallel to the ground, and that even those which occasionally walk around bipedally spend lots of time either brachiating (in trees) or quadrupedally. There were no designs involved. Humans are the largest bipedal walkers, but not the only ones. Here's an interesting survey: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC…

I'd say (and I am a biologist) there is truth to it, but we also didn't evolve sitting all day. There would be much less back problems if would walk and stand more because our muscles would be trained constantly. Our bodies are things that wear out when not using them.

Re: The $100B per year back pain industry is mostly a hoax

#222
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Re: The $100B per year back pain industry is mostly a hoax

#223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can provide any proof that vaccines cause long term diseases in any significant rate, I would appreciate it.

I can't respond to the original comment anymore, but I'll just throw it under yours because it tipped me enough over the edge that I thought I would respond. To help provide some counterpoints: > The National Childhood Vaccine Act limits the liability of vaccine manufactures from claims. There is a separate fund which pays off families whose children were injured by a vaccine. Read the background section of this wiki…

Ok, I'll bite the bullet with another round of downvoting to respond, cause we want to incentivize healthy debates here ;-)

> However, there is nothing stopping someone from suing in federal court, and any attorney's fees during "Vaccine Court" are paid for by the government due to the Vaccine Injury Fund.

From the article https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Vaccine_court

"Vaccine court" is the popular term which refers to the Office of Special Masters of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, which administers a no-fault system for litigating vaccine injury claims. These claims against vaccine manufacturers cannot normally be filed in state or federal civil courts, but instead must be heard in the Court of Claims, sitting without a jury."

No fault, no jury, no state or federal courts.

> Maybe Snopes is too mainstream for some readers

Snopes is not mainstream. Snopes is misleading shillery founded by a two fraudulant sexual deviants & their cat. One irritating thing about snopes is their claim of "False" with confusing commentary to "support" their judgement, but hey, it's Snopes so it must be true right? But I digress. After all we agreed to be good investigators...

> Did collected data actually prove that the MMR vaccine produces a 340% increased risk of autism in African-American boys? The answer is no, it did not.

Again, the whole "proof" thing about these studies. There's only evidence & there is no "proof" vaccines are effective. There may be evidence, but not "proof".

> So is Hooker’s result valid? Was there really a 3.36-fold increased risk for autism in African-American males who received MMR vaccination before the age of 36 months in this dataset? Hooker [performed] multiple subset analyses, which, of course, are prone to false positives.

Aha! This is the crux of Snope's "False" claim hidden at the bottom of the article; a CDC (the same institution being investigated) employee analysis. Nail in the coffin for this "False" assessment \s; and the Bible is true because it says so in the Bible \s. Typical Snopes to play elaborate games of wordsmithing so people on Facebook can say "False!" because nobody reads the mumbo jumbo underneath. I don't know why I wasted my time.

Since you are so keen on source material; Here's the original piece of Dr. Bill Thompson's interview. He seems quite persistent about his claims. Maybe Dr. Thompson should read the Snopes artice to get some sense:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGOtDVilkUc

Or Dr. Thompson says "My boss is asking me to lie" "I have basically stopped lying".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8697rSvIqhg

There's even an entire documentary about Dr. Thompson.

http://vaxxedthemovie.com/

Of course there are other whistle blowers.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/10/0...

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/lawrence-solomon/merck-whistleb...

> Now, I'm not the best researcher, but I feel like I would have picked a more representative group than just homeschooled children (maybe they were the only groups of mothers that would complete a survey? > Unlikely, I would imagine that I could get more than 600 responders from a far larger group).

That's great, however vaccines are compulsory for a child to enter the public education system. No education, CPR comes to take your child away...Home & Religious schoolers are the only options.

> I found it interesting that the results stated the odds-ratio for preterm birth + vaccination -> NDD (autism), but not the odds-ratio for vaccination - preterm birth -> NDD > If anyone has the actual paper, I would appreciate a link!

http://newamericannews.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/MAWSON...

Conclusions: In this study based on mothers’ reports, the vaccinated had a higher rate of allergies and NDD than the unvaccinated. Vaccination, but not preterm birth, remained significantly associated with NDD after controlling for other factors. However, preterm birth combined with vaccination was associated with an apparent synergistic increase in the odds of NDD. Further research involving larger, independent samples is needed to verify and understand these unexpected findings in order to optimize the impact of vaccines on children’s health.

> President Trump commissioned a panel headed by Robert Kennedy & supported by Robert De Niro > Not sure what you're trying to prove with this one. If you can explain further, I'd appreciate it.

There is a serious enough concern to warrent the creation of a Federal panel as a result of the advocacy of Robert F. Kennedy Jr & Robert De Niro. Again, we are looking for evidence as we aren't going to find "proof".

> Could an easier explanation exist for why there is such a harsh response? That maybe people don't want children to die unnecessarily?

I've been noticing that when there is a concerted effort to bully people for their criticism, there are probably monied interests behind it. Remember the whole "climate change deniers" being bullied? Turns out there are legitimate doubts re: climate change science & the implied carbon taxes. Btw, did you know that the CIA created the label "conspiracy theorist" to discredit skeptics of the Warren Commission analysis of the JFK assasination?

https://projectunspeakable.com/conspiracy-theory-invention-o...

Here's a transcript of CIA Document 1035-960:

http://www.jfklancer.com/CIA.html

Anytime we are told to demonize a "such-and-such denier", it calls into question, why is there a public relations campaign to bully these "deniers"? People tend to follow their interests & be honest when there are no conflicts of interest. Certainly, people do not want to be subjected to ostricization & bullying for having an opinion & healthy skepticism. It would also be naive to think that monied interests are not above physically harming critics that can hurt their interests.

If vaccines were so effective, the only children "dying unnecessarily" would be the unvaccinated. If vaccines are causing health issues, then children are "dying unnecessarily" from the vaccines themselves. When there is reasonable doubt, it's best to let people make decisions over their own bodies or the bodies of their children.

> Unpopular opinion: I'd much rather my child have autism than die of a disease that could be vaccinated against.

I'd rather not have my child have the health consequences associated with vaccines. I'm not afraid of the fear mongering propagandized by parties with obvious conflicts of interest. Do you believe the pharmaceutical companies? I don't...

> Influenza and things like a GI infection (campylobacter) are known to cause GBS.

If this was a simple case of Influenza, why would the vaccine court award money to these parents? This was only one search result that popped up showing one month. There are 12 months in the year. It looks like awarding parents money for vaccine injuries is a regular occurance. This does not match the narrative that "vaccines are perfectly safe". Why do we have such a dissonance in narrative? Looks like there's something to hide. Where there's smoke...

> We get booster shots for a reason.

No thanks.

> However, measles is pretty virulent, so the vaccine isn't 100% effective, more like 97%.

Yet the unvaccinated were blamed for these measles outbreak. Sounds like #FakeNews applies in those cases.

> Even if you think glyphosate is dangerous for your health, the small amounts of it in vaccines that you take rarely compared to the massive amounts in daily food and drink makes it hard for me to worry.

Glyphosate is considered a carcinogen by California. Also, it is far more dangerous injected directly into the bloodstream of a baby than it is injested by an adult.

Vaccines have had a history of containing unwanted compounds.

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Polio_vaccine

"Over 98 million Americans received one or more doses of polio vaccine between 1955 and 1963 when a proportion of vaccine was contaminated with SV40; it has been estimated that 10–30 million Americans may have received a dose of vaccine contaminated with SV40"

Of course, with Dr. Thompson being told to lie, seems to indicate that there is reasonable evidence that there there are more issues than what has been published. In fact, with Dr. Thompson, we should vet everything that the CDC has published. Perhaps we should more independent studies & we should allow parents to make their own decisions re: vaccines.

Re: Mercury in vaccines - Thiomersal

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Thiomersal

> Thiomersal (INN), or thimerosal (USP), is an organomercury compound. This compound is a well established antiseptic and antifungal agent.

> It has been used as a preservative in vaccines, immunoglobulin preparations, skin test antigens, antivenins, ophthalmic and nasal products, and tattoo inks.

> The current scientific consensus is that no convincing scientific evidence supports these fears

The point is there will never be "convincing scietific evidence" that injecting Mercury into your baby's bloodstream is harmful due to conflict of interest by the "current scientific consensus" (even though there isn't consensus, it's just that those scientists who disagree are not part of the "current scientific consensus").

To round out this comment, here's a live video of the known neurotoxin mercury's degenative effects on neurons. Who in their right mind thought it was a good idea to inject babies with Mercury, directly into their bloodstream? Maybe the same institutions that thought it was a good idea to inject the SV40 virus.

Here's the video. I encourage you to watch...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHqVDMr9ivo

Re: The $100B per year back pain industry is mostly a hoax

#224
post #26

I'm a programmer, always at the desk. Back problems came on in my mid/late thirties, as I let my physique go. Once I started squatting in early 40s, back pain has largely subsided. Only reoccurred when I got too optimistic regarding my training, after a break. Have now fixed that by learning to train in moderation / be more consistent - as I get older, there really is no excuse good enough for not going. So yes: Lear…

To clarify the term: "a2g" = "ass to grass", or full extension at the bottom of the movement such that calves and hamstrings meet.

Thanks, that's a great way of describing it.

Re: The $100B per year back pain industry is mostly a hoax

#225
post #196
post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have also found sleeping on a hard floor very effective in preventing back pain.

there are firm mattresses :)

I tried a solid wooden bed platform with about 2 inches of foam mattress topper. If nothing else, it makes you really good at camping - sleeping on the hard ground is so much more comfortable when you're used to it.

Re: The $100B per year back pain industry is mostly a hoax

#226
post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weight loss isn't "known intractable". Physically it's very simple, if an overweight person is physically prevented from eating too much, they'll lose weight, just like physically it's very simple to quit addictive drugs. And the drug analogy is a good one, because just like quitting drugs, you can't quit overeating (barring the aforementioned option of someone physically preventing you from doing so - which is liter…

You're right that weight loss is largely a mental rather than a physical issue, but very, very wrong to suggest it's as simple as making a choice. Mental health issues can prevent someone from making good, rational decisions, and the notion that they're somehow failing to make an "easy" choice shows a contemptuous lack of understanding and compassion.

> very, very wrong to suggest it's as simple as making a choice

taneq didn't suggest that.

Re: The $100B per year back pain industry is mostly a hoax

#227
post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you do not even need that. just set appetite = 80 in the human source code so you start eating 80÷ of your daily caloric use. the pounds will melt off. when you have a goal weight set appetite = 100÷ and you will simply stay at that weight. it is very simple physically. as for where to set it, I have nothing to say about it just as you have nothing to say about how to make a choice. /s The fact is, a choice fat peopl…

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/opinion/sunday/why-you-ca... Apparently, boffins are starting to realise it's not that simple.

A neuroscientist claims neuroscience is the key component that makes weight loss difficult. Colour me sceptical.

Re: The $100B per year back pain industry is mostly a hoax

#228
post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weight loss isn't "known intractable". Physically it's very simple, if an overweight person is physically prevented from eating too much, they'll lose weight, just like physically it's very simple to quit addictive drugs. And the drug analogy is a good one, because just like quitting drugs, you can't quit overeating (barring the aforementioned option of someone physically preventing you from doing so - which is liter…

> Physically it's very simple So is cutting your arm off with a hacksaw. "Simple" does not mean "easy."

And that is exactly taneq's point.

Re: The $100B per year back pain industry is mostly a hoax

#229
post #16

I can personally vouch for the effectiveness of a morning routine of 15 minutes of exercise at home, targeting the pelvic muscles. The only equipment required is a floor mat, if the floor is hard. I started gently and naturally progressed to a higher level, taking the attitude that there is no hurry, because I'm going to be doing this for the rest of my life, so there is plenty of time to progress. My initial routine…

> I don't mean to be smug, as back pain really is an individual thing. There's an element of searching for what works, and I was lucky in that I was pointed directly towards an effective treatment. I think this is extremely important for everyone to remember. People tend to (correctly) scoff at anecdotal experience, but often that's all you can work with. When studying health problems, most studies will tend to find…

Excellent insights. This is one of those occasional HN comments that everyone should bookmark and revisit from time to time.

Re: The $100B per year back pain industry is mostly a hoax

#230
post #144
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll vouch for the effectiveness of losing 30+kg (65+lb). Which only reduces the back pain problem for overweight people to a known-intractable weight loss problem... :-/

Weight loss isn't "known intractable". Physically it's very simple, if an overweight person is physically prevented from eating too much, they'll lose weight, just like physically it's very simple to quit addictive drugs. And the drug analogy is a good one, because just like quitting drugs, you can't quit overeating (barring the aforementioned option of someone physically preventing you from doing so - which is liter…

"Holds" implies something a lot more passive than it is. Losing weight is a full-time job, harder than anything else I've done. I've succeeded over the last couple of years but only because I'm in the privileged position of literally everything else in my life going well enough that I can focus all my willpower on it.
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