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A boy, his brain, and a decades-long medical controversy

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Re: A boy, his brain, and a decades-long medical controversy

#91

Post by jhrmnn »

deltaonetwo wrote: post #53
Auracle wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that if you go in to an appointment with a peer reviewed study printed out things will go better for you. It’s a good way to signal “I did my own research, but not on YouTube.”

This is ingenious and a incredible way to display how illogical a doctor (and people in general) can be. It's completely obvious that the doctor isn't going to really read the paper (he's too busy). You just present a paper and suddenly the doctor will trust you more. Literally it's deference to Authority being employed by the doctor here; nothing going on with rationality or logic. Don't present a single logical arg…

Science is built on deference to authority. You cannot possibly derive all known physics laws yourself, or verify all the known biology yourself. You have to trust to a certain degree all the scientists that came before you, collectively. You can question some bits here and there but you don’t have time to question everything. The doctors cannot possibly evaluate all the arguments brought in by patients, they don’t have time or even expertise to do that. But they can trust (to a certain degree) a peer-reviewed article.

Re: A boy, his brain, and a decades-long medical controversy

#92

Post by klmr »

cowmoo728 wrote: post #33

There seems to be an assumption underlying medicine that things must be true at the population level for them to also be true at the individual level. I think medicine is picking its populations wrong. Example: the skeptical doctor in the article notes that "strep infection is extremely common in children, accounting for as many as a third of all sore throats—but you don’t see droves of kids with abnormal behavior cr…

> There seems to be an assumption underlying medicine that things must be true at the population level for them to also be true at the individual level.

That really isn’t true: medicine as a field does not have this assumption, and rare disease research is a thing (and it’s commonly acknowledged that “rare diseases”, taken together, aren’t rare at all). In fact, rare disease research is providing acute clinical diagnosis and sometimes cures for highly individual cases. Personalised medicine is probably the fastest growing subfield in medical research.

Your example of antidepressants underlines this: it’s in fact widely acknowledged that, while antidepressants on average only have a very mild effect, they can be very effective (or, conversely, not effective at all) for an individual, and they are actively prescribed with this in mind. Contrary to what you’ve claimed, no expert assumes that antidepressants have a uniform effect across subpopulations.

However, treating each disease as a completely individual case just isn’t feasible at scale, and is usually also not appropriate. So the first anamnesis will always focus on common diseases, and rightly so.

Re: A boy, his brain, and a decades-long medical controversy

#93

Post by rscho »

deltaonetwo wrote: post #52
nappy wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The filtering, testing requirements, and frankly unpleasantness involved in medicine (in the United States) not only drives the curve to the right, but also lops off a good portion of the left side of the curve of all of those who want to become physicians.

The problem with this is that there is zero evidence that the filtering and testing requirements correlate with actual doctoring skills. In fact there is evidence against this. Think of it this way; in Europe it is far easier to become a doctor then in the US due to significantly less stringent requirements. However in Europe and other 1st world countries treatment and other quantitative measures on quality of medica…

Americans like to believe that becoming a doctor is so much harder in the US. This is not true. I am a foreign medical grad. It is actually pretty easy to get a passing mark on your exams, and from that pov your system is not what it seems. What's hard in the US is getting into med school. But it's not that much harder than in Europe, apart from the cost of course, which acts as the major barrier in your country.

In fact, education and medical systems are different enough between Europe and the US that saying one is harder is very subjective. For instance, american specialists are really hyperspecialized. They often excel at what they do, and are completely ignorant of other fields. Europeans often have a much broader medical knowledge. They are also far less aggressive. All in all, I much prefer Europe.

Re: A boy, his brain, and a decades-long medical controversy

#94

Post by klmr »

jdthedisciple wrote: post #75
joshuaissac wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

mRNA vaccines are not gene therapies. https://www.genomicseducation.hee.nhs.uk/blog/why-mrna-vacci...

Depending on the definition, they are or aren't. There seems to be a disagreement. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.swfinstitute.org/news/83947...

No, it doesn’t depend on the definition. This isn’t a point of contention amongst experts. The article you cite is simply wrong (in particular, its claim about the classification of mRNA vaccines as gene therapy in Europe is categorically false), it fundamentally misunderstands how mRNA vaccines work, and it misrepresents the sources it cites supposedly in support.

Re: A boy, his brain, and a decades-long medical controversy

#95

Post by AnthonBerg »

creativenolo wrote: post #83
jdthedisciple wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depending on the definition, they are or aren't. There seems to be a disagreement. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.swfinstitute.org/news/83947...

The NHS article states "The mRNA from the vaccines does not enter the cell nucleus or interact with the DNA at all, so it does not constitute gene therapy." The article you have posted explains what gene therapy is confidently, but it doesn't explain, or reference particularly well, why an mRNA would be considered gene therapy or why it would alter genes.

We should strive to take jthedisciple’s comments at face value, and literally. From there we will arrive at a charitable interpretation.

Here is an example where Harvard Stem Cell Institute discusses mRNA therapy as gene therapy: https://hsci.harvard.edu/translation/what-are-drugs-4-gene-t...

The Wikipedia entry on gene therapy discusses mRNA therapy under the Non-viral section: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_therapy – “BioNTech, Moderna Therapeutics and CureVac focus on delivery of mRNA payloads, which are necessarily non-viral delivery problems.”

Indeed the mRNA vaccines carry a genetic payload – a segment of viral genome which is modified using a genetic perspective and from a position of genomic understanding. mRNA is a temporary and deliberately non-permanent message carrier substrate; Here too, humanity’s employment of such facts can be interpreted as scientific knowledge of the matters of the genes. If we choose to call mRNA vaccines gene therapy – which they are less clearly than other techniques – then it is certainly the better gene therapy for purposefully avoiding permanent alteration of the genome in the subject to be treated.

Re: A boy, his brain, and a decades-long medical controversy

#96

Post by rscho »

deltaonetwo wrote: post #84
industriousthou wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of misinformed thinking is why doctors often don’t take their patients seriously.

I'm actually a researcher in academia in this area. I'm more well informed then medical professionals on this topic. I am sorry to say that you, like everyone else jumped to a conclusion here. Why don't you look at my other reply, there's more nuance there, and it might break you out of your own bias.

You may be a researcher in the area but you are also a very pretentious one. This statement that docs consider their patients dimwits is wrong. It may be true for some docs. Just like it's true that some researchers have a very myopic view of their own field.

Re: A boy, his brain, and a decades-long medical controversy

#97

Post by logicchains »

joshuaissac wrote: post #71
jdthedisciple wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you and I'd even go as far as to say the same applies to novel vaccines or mRNA gene therapies: Yes, those may be effective for most people, but for others with certain preconditions, these may prove to be detrimental. In fact, we have seen this happen, such as increasing numbers of myocarditis in young males after getting their biontech shot. Point being, a little scepticism and reluctance in taking new…

mRNA vaccines are not gene therapies. https://www.genomicseducation.hee.nhs.uk/blog/why-mrna-vacci...

It's been found that through reverse transcriptase it's actually possible for the RNA from covid infections to be integrated into the genes: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33330870/ . If covid itself can do it, can the mRNA vaccines do it too?

Re: A boy, his brain, and a decades-long medical controversy

#98

Post by lelanthran »

nappy wrote: post #46
pintxo wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A) Think IT Support suddenly exposed to a knowledgeable user B) Just like IT Support, doctors abilities are distributed on a bell curve. We all hope that the curve is leaning to the right, but I think the jury is still out on that one.

The filtering, testing requirements, and frankly unpleasantness involved in medicine (in the United States) not only drives the curve to the right, but also lops off a good portion of the left side of the curve of all of those who want to become physicians.

> The filtering, testing requirements, and frankly unpleasantness involved in medicine (in the United States) not only drives the curve to the right,

What makes you think that they are filtering for good physicians? Or even filtering for those who are capable of becoming doctors?

Here in South Africa, post-1994, universities adopted a very aggressive affirmative action policy to correct imbalances of the past. While med-schools had previously been based purely on merit, post-1994 introduced quotas for each of the major race groups.

This meant that a disadvantaged-background student with a C average would often be picked over an advantaged student with an A average.

The result was still doctors who graduated, and then went on to practice. The restriction by med-schools everywhere is not because only high-performing students will survive it, it's a purely artificial restriction.

After all, if C average students pass, why not simply increase the intake?

Re: A boy, his brain, and a decades-long medical controversy

#99

Post by sterlind »

deltaonetwo wrote: post #45

You don't know the extent of human bias. All humans are ruled more by bias than by logic, doctors included AND you included as well. What's especially worse is that Doctors are trained to mistrust a patient. They view patients as lower ranking simpletons so they trust established knowledge more than they trust a patients description of an anomaly. The key here that you have to realize is that what the doctors are doi…

uh, homosexual behavior is found in a wide variety of animal species. if it were a "disorder," it would have already been selected against. your analysis is just overly simplistic - there are a lot of traits that confer advantage to a group while reducing reproduction by an individual.

Re: A boy, his brain, and a decades-long medical controversy

#100

Post by klmr »

AnthonBerg wrote: post #95
creativenolo wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NHS article states "The mRNA from the vaccines does not enter the cell nucleus or interact with the DNA at all, so it does not constitute gene therapy." The article you have posted explains what gene therapy is confidently, but it doesn't explain, or reference particularly well, why an mRNA would be considered gene therapy or why it would alter genes.

We should strive to take jthedisciple’s comments at face value, and literally. From there we will arrive at a charitable interpretation. Here is an example where Harvard Stem Cell Institute discusses mRNA therapy as gene therapy: https://hsci.harvard.edu/translation/what-are-drugs-4-gene-t... The Wikipedia entry on gene therapy discusses mRNA therapy under the Non-viral section: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_the…

> Here is an example where Harvard Stem Cell Institute discusses mRNA therapy as gene therapy: https://hsci.harvard.edu/translation/what-are-drugs-4-gene-t...

And the very next paragraph (in its heading, no less) makes it clear that RNA therapies and gene therapies are distinct, i.e. that RNA therapies are not (necessarily) gene therapies.

The Wikipedia article you cite doesn’t mention mRNA vaccines. The single mention of “mRNA payloads” does not necessarily refer to vaccines (there are other RNA therapies, and some of these might be gene therapies, although I don’t think they are) — but even if it did the sentence’s inclusion in this article is debatable at the very least.

Fundamentally, gene therapies always work by modifying the host genome. mRNA vaccines don’t do this (nor do any other RNA therapy approaches that I’m aware of).

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