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Don’t Take Medical Advice From the New York Times Magazine

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Re: Don’t Take Medical Advice From the New York Times Magazine

#81

Post by praptak »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #74
praptak wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the "with the obvious rational disclaimers" part. The above chemicals have been extensively field tested. Huge numbers of people have eaten them for a long long time, it's safe to assume any ill effects of these are known (although obviously the natural selection had little time to adapt us humans to these substances.)

How do you feel about vaccines? Anti-biotics? Why is fear justified? Isn't the appropriate response reason and critical thinking? FDA approved drugs have been extensively field tested as well. And many "dangerous" chemicals are actually safer than, say, wine. You're just trying to justify your fear of the unfamiliar. It's parochial and small-minded. Do you think that the people who discovered tea, beer, tomatoes, and…

> How do you feel about vaccines? Anti-biotics?

Both extensively tested, although antibiotics are interesting because they created drug-resistant strains. Which shows that it is rational to be on the lookout for unexpected bad effects of new things in general.

> Why is fear justified? Isn't the appropriate response reason and critical thinking?

Never stated it's one or the other. Fear of ill effects is what makes us do the whole critical evaluation, which is good.

> You're just trying to justify your fear of the unfamiliar.

I'm afraid you have read from my comments something that wasn't there at all. "Fear until reasonably tested" = rational. "Fear that makes one ignore all evidence" = obviously irrational.

> Do you think that the people who discovered tea, beer, tomatoes, and cheese thought that way?

They took the risk and won - good for us. I'm just against calling their fellow tribesmen (or countrymen) irrational, especially those who already knew about death caps & similar.

Re: Don’t Take Medical Advice From the New York Times Magazine

#82

Post by Osmium »

leoh wrote: post #18

"We are a chemophobic culture." I take great issue with this statement. We are most decidedly not a chemophobic culture. People are more than willing to take medicines that are artificially synthesized and, as the author mentions, with good reason. I, for one, am not chemophobic. I personally know an individual who developed one of the first total-syntheses (i.e. "artificial" chemical synthesis) of a very important a…

> the fact that people without any scientific background have safely taken and studied natural products without modern science; namely by studying themselves; in India and China there were masters at this sort of art

Yes, because that explains why rhino horn is so great... For every traditional medicine that has value, there are a dozen that are complete quackery and to ignore those is to fall victim to confirmation bias. Still, I liked your overall points, but they can be taken too far. The FDA is certainly a good thing, albeit flawed.

Re: Don’t Take Medical Advice From the New York Times Magazine

#83

Post by Nursie »

megablast wrote: post #36
sliverstorm wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering you can synthesize organic material, life can produce inorganic compounds, and plenty of organic material is toxic as shit, I'm not sure I agree with that line of thinking. I can't speak for everyone, but I am of the opinion that glucose synthesized in a lab requires no special evolution on the part of humans to process.

What you are saying is disingenuous. Clearly the pills made for pharmaceutical are incredibly dangerous, even when taken as per the instructions. That is why they are prescribed. Avoiding taking prescription drugs unless you really have to (ie are going to die), as I do, is not a bad way to live. Just because natural things will kill you, does not mean we should not avoid man made things. So I do not take pills for h…

"Clearly the pills made for pharmaceutical are incredibly dangerous, even when taken as per the instructions. That is why they are prescribed."

Nope. Simplistic, backwards thinking.

There's nothing dangerous about taking a valium to help you sleep once in a while, unless you have a specific allergy. And that is what you would be instructed to do if you were suffering from insomnia or panic attacks.

They are controlled because they are dangerous in large amounts and addictive if used frequently.

Some antibiotics are controlled because people see them as a magic cure-all and would take them for everything, which would even more rapidly lead to resistant strains of bacteria and make the antibiotics useless.

So sure, some drugs are dangerous when used as instructed, but many are only dangerous when abused, and some have wider implications for society.

Re: Don’t Take Medical Advice From the New York Times Magazine

#85

Post by megablast »

DanBC wrote: post #75
megablast wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you are saying is disingenuous. Clearly the pills made for pharmaceutical are incredibly dangerous, even when taken as per the instructions. That is why they are prescribed. Avoiding taking prescription drugs unless you really have to (ie are going to die), as I do, is not a bad way to live. Just because natural things will kill you, does not mean we should not avoid man made things. So I do not take pills for h…

Paracetamol (acetaminophen) is a very safe drug if you do not take too much. Being in pain when there is a simple, cheap, safe, effective medication is a bad way to live.

The problem I have with it is that it lowers the bodies natural ways of dealing with pain. You become more reliant on it, rather than just handling the pain yourself.

This works for non extreme pain, of course.

Re: Don’t Take Medical Advice From the New York Times Magazine

#86

Post by megablast »

Nursie wrote: post #67
firefoxman1 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never heard the term "chemophobic" before, but now that I think about it I have some chemophobic friends. Their argument is always something like this: "Humans evolved consuming only organic material from their very beginnings up until about 100 years ago. Humans just haven't evolved to tolerate synthesised chemicals in a mere 100 years." (that's obviously paraphrased but you get the point) But when it's said like th…

I like to think of it this way - It's strange how the last hundred years in the west have seen the greatest expansion in both length and quality of life isn't it, while at the same time we all have to deal with these 'chemical toxins' that people decry. Maybe they aren't poison, and just maybe we've all benefited from the rise of synthetic medicine (amongst other things).

This is incredibly simplistic. The last 100 years has seen the expansion of the car industry as well, I guess there must be some relation to out quality of life as well. Even though cars are responsible for over 100,000 deaths a year.

Re: Don’t Take Medical Advice From the New York Times Magazine

#87

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

Nursie wrote: post #84

I'm just going to leave this here ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhGuXCuDb1U (Tim Minchin's "Storm")

Ah, old but good:

"Alternative Medicine has, by definition, not been proved to work, or been proved not to work. You know what we call alternative medicine that works? Medicine."

Re: Don’t Take Medical Advice From the New York Times Magazine

#88

Post by carbocation »

jonnathanson wrote: post #72
Nursie wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"there are miraculous, mysterious things that we do not understand about natural products and the human body" "It lies in the fact that we are applying something very strong in a way that is not balanced or integrated." Magical thinking detected. There is no evidence that taking combinations is inherently a good thing. Some things work well on their own, some work well in combination, some combinations antagonise hor…

"Magical thinking detected." I didn't interpret his post as containing any magical thinking or handwaving, per se. Rather, I think's saying that there are interactions and compounds in drugs we use that we don't (yet) fully understand. Where you and he differ is that he advocates the use of compounds that seem to work, but whose mechanism of action we don't fully comprehend -- whereas you appear to take a more cautio…

> Rather, I think's saying that there are interactions and compounds in drugs we use that we don't (yet) fully understand.

Unless there is evidence to support that position, that's indistinguishable from magical thinking rephrased to sound scientific.

Re: Don’t Take Medical Advice From the New York Times Magazine

#89

Post by derleth »

firefoxman1 wrote: post #22
tokenadult wrote: post #8

From the article: "We are a chemophobic culture. Chemical has become a synonym for something artificial, adulterated, hazardous, or toxic. Chemicals are bad—for you, for your children, for the environment. But whatever chemophobics would like to think, there is no avoiding chemicals, no way to create chemical-free zones. Absolutely everything is made of atoms and molecules; it’s all chemistry." This was striking to m…

Never heard the term "chemophobic" before, but now that I think about it I have some chemophobic friends. Their argument is always something like this: "Humans evolved consuming only organic material from their very beginnings up until about 100 years ago. Humans just haven't evolved to tolerate synthesised chemicals in a mere 100 years." (that's obviously paraphrased but you get the point) But when it's said like th…

> Humans evolved consuming only organic material from their very beginnings up until about 100 years ago.

Humans also evolved to have a dozen or so children and see four or five of them make it to adulthood.

The reason you see life expectancies as low as 35 for past European cultures isn't that the people were dying in early middle age: Adults could and did live to see 70 or more. It was because they had horrible infant mortality rates combined with horrible death tolls from childhood illnesses.

The only thing keeping everyone from going back to that is chemicals. The modern First World have-three-kids-keep-three-kids lifestyle is entirely artificial. It depends on artificial things to keep it going.

Re: Don’t Take Medical Advice From the New York Times Magazine

#90

Post by derleth »

megablast wrote: post #86
Nursie wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like to think of it this way - It's strange how the last hundred years in the west have seen the greatest expansion in both length and quality of life isn't it, while at the same time we all have to deal with these 'chemical toxins' that people decry. Maybe they aren't poison, and just maybe we've all benefited from the rise of synthetic medicine (amongst other things).

This is incredibly simplistic. The last 100 years has seen the expansion of the car industry as well, I guess there must be some relation to out quality of life as well. Even though cars are responsible for over 100,000 deaths a year.

> The last 100 years has seen the expansion of the car industry as well, I guess there must be some relation to out quality of life as well.

How many people would die if not for ambulances?

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