Debunking foil-hat theories on public health

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A Ah Sha Sa Ma Ha
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Re: Debunking foil-hat theories on public health

Post by A Ah Sha Sa Ma Ha »

T. Chokyi wrote:I especially enjoyed reading your enthusiastic sharing of recipes in another thread,
Thank you so much for your kindwords T.Chokyi. I will still be posting in the INDIAN FOOD thread, it is not considered controversial, although not everyone loves Indian food .

:namaste:







(I just saw your reply Lostitude, I will reply later on as I have to get back to work now...) :namaste:
Urgyen Dorje
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Re: Debunking foil-hat theories on public health

Post by Urgyen Dorje »

There are multiple layers of selection bias here.

One is that research costs money, a lot of money. Generally agribusiness and big pharm can fund trials, and those trials generally positively favor their products. Why? Well, they simply wouldn't have been funded if they didn't. FDA approval is expensive and the trials and studies are expensive.

On the flip side, alternative and complementary medicine don't have the funding for trials to validate their claims, so trials are generally small with fairly obviously cherry picked results. Yet at the same time, that's not all that different from agribusiness and big pharm, because if their trials fail, they generally restructure the retrial towards a favorable outcome. It's largely a question of whether the outcome is engineered from the beginning or at the end.

Then there is the consumer reporting. When it comes to big pharm and agribusiness, there is generally a negative selection bias, as people who feel fine taking a drug or eating GMO pears generally don't need to get on a website and share it. People who get hurt want to scream about it. On the flip side, when it comes to alternative and complementary medicine, there's generally a positive selection bias as people are reporting great things when the tradition things didn't work, and such people generally want to stand on the roof and shout out about it to everyone. The people who let stage 2 cancer become stage 3 cancer because their flower essences didn't work generally don't want to talk about it at all.

And then there is the product marketing. Of course big pharm and agribusiness want everyone to believe their products are safe and that alternative products are dangerous. Why? They make more money. And of course alternative medicine and the whole foods industries want everyone to believe their products are safe and that drugs and GMO food is dangerous. Why? They make more money.

The reality is that most of this is non-information unless one is really aware of all these biases and leverage points.
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Re: Debunking foil-hat theories on public health

Post by Seishin »

Kunga Lhadzom wrote:
Seishin wrote:Reading through the various threads, I don't think the OP is suggesting we ignore/block/censor discussions on healthy eating or complementary health practices, but rather, we should call the BS or lack of evidence or dubious evidence for the statement that eating '1,2,3' will cue 'A,B,C'. So, this isn't to do with healthy eating, it is to do with debunking dubious claims, hence the title of the thread.
In my experience being involved with the raw food-vegan lifestyle/movement, I have read/seen many testimony's of people that HAVE BEEN CURED simply by changing their diets (cured of cancer & other diseases to a raw food diet.

I have also read that Japanese doctors/hospitals treat cancer patients with Reishi Mushroom, and they attest their low lung cancer rate with green tea consumption .

It doesn't take rocket science to understand a healthy diet contributes to a healthy body. It doesn't take rocket science to see the effects of poor diets, processed foods, etc.

Doctors are not trained to cure people (it's against their Hippocratic Oath), they are only trained to treat people. Wasn't it also Hippocrates that said "Let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food".

I am throughly convinced that diet CAN CURE disease. (Not in ALL cases....) But to debunk it all and say there is no scientific proof or any type of credible evidence is BS.

Can you imagine our public health system making it mandatory for everyone to eat healthy, and ban GMO's and all toxins from our diets ?
Can you imagine the FDA banning all carcinogens from the food supply ?
Can you imagine having massage therapy covered in insurance policies ?
Can you imagine America so healthy we rarely ever get sick and hospitals empty ?
Can you imagine us taking our health into our own hands and not tolerating the psuedo "health" (death) care system to drug us anymore ?
Again, I think this is missing the point of the OP. No-one is saying that a good diet can't cure diseases, certainly not me.
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Johnny Dangerous
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Re: Debunking foil-hat theories on public health

Post by Johnny Dangerous »

I know someone who controlled the spread of atypical (i.e. worse, got it younger than normal )prostate cancer through diet, and still does. He would either be dead or much worse had he not gone that route, is the consensus.

Two things on that though, firstly, cancer does not get 'cured', it gets treated, sometimes it's successful, sometimes not. Plenty of people do the alternative treatment, and die anyway, just like people die when they try the chemo.

Second thing, while I understand in particular the things UD is saying, if you're going to get into 'alternative' therapies honestly you have to have discrimination of what's what, and can't just blindly accept that there are a bunch of 'cancer cures' that 'they' don't want you t know about.....that is someone's created meme/marketing ploy that has nothing to do with reality.

A number of years ago, that paragon of trut Doctor Mercola was featuring and Italian doctor who claimed he could 'cure cancer' with baking soda injections, turned out it was BS, and he was bilking desperate, dying people. So yeah, there is plenty of sleaze in alternative medicine..and you have to be discriminating.
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Re: Debunking foil-hat theories on public health

Post by Jesse »

DGA wrote: For the anti-flouridation Dr. Strangelove set:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... -australia
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/featur ... jean-choi/
The average loss in IQ was reported as a standardized weighted mean difference of 0.45, which would be approximately equivalent to seven IQ points for commonly used IQ scores with a standard deviation of 15.* Some studies suggested that even slightly increased fluoride exposure could be toxic to the brain. Thus, children in high-fluoride areas had significantly lower IQ scores than those who lived in low-fluoride areas. The children studied were up to 14 years of age, but the investigators speculate that any toxic effect on brain development may have happened earlier, and that the brain may not be fully capable of compensating for the toxicity.
Has links to studies, one of which doesn't load but I found it elsewhere: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25446012

also:
As of February 2015, a total of 51 studies have investigated the relationship between fluoride and human intelligence, and a total of 34 studies have investigated the relationship fluoride and learning/memory in animals. Of these investigations, 44 of the 51 human studies have found that elevated fluoride exposure is associated with reduced IQ, while 32 of the 34 animal studies have found that fluoride exposure impairs the learning and/or memory capacity of animals. The human studies, which are based on IQ examinations of over 11,000 children, provide compelling evidence that fluoride exposure during the early years of life can damage a child’s developing brain.
http://fluoridealert.org/studies/brain01/
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A Ah Sha Sa Ma Ha
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Re: Debunking foil-hat theories on public health

Post by A Ah Sha Sa Ma Ha »

lostitude wrote:I think the problem is how you phrase it: you make it almost sound like a raw food diet can cure cancer and other diseases in most people, and so everybody should switch to such a diet. I know that's not what you mean, since you do say that it's not applicable to all cases. But that's how it can be understood.
Well maybe I'm a little more enthusiastic because I've been "hanging out" with raw foodists and following them and trying to do it myself for the past 5 years or so...so it's become natural and normal to me, and it's more of a shock to hear about for others I suppose...

Here's an example of what I've been exposed to in my quest to be healthier :

phpBB [video]







lostitude wrote:I have just read the Hippocratic Oath and I can't find anything saying that curing people goes against the oath.
I also just read it for the first time this morning (what a coincidense !) I skimmed through it, and it looked like it said in the original version to cure people, and the Modern version : "prevention was preferable to cure" :shrug:

Anyways...sounds like nowadays it's not really taken seriously as an oath ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic_Oath


lostitude wrote:Can you imagine a world where everyone is nice, where there is no war and no disease, no affliction, and no ageing and no death... why does this ring a bell?
I guess we got ourselves into this mess...so we must find the way out...... :buddha2:
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Re: Debunking foil-hat theories on public health

Post by A Ah Sha Sa Ma Ha »

kalden yungdrung wrote:Tashi delek KL,


I'm sorry dear Kalden Yungdrung I haven't been responding to all your posts....I get a little overwhelmed at answering and talking too much...I'm normally not so talkative...and i don't like talking too much either...but somtimes I surprize myself...and get into trouble when I talk too much ....



:rolleye:





Well sometimes we are discussing on the edge of possibilities.

Yes...and I've always been on the edge...an idealist, dreamer,non-conformist, and they call me flakey too... :shrug:


But one thing is sure, we are + motivated and do not have a bad mentality.

Yes, for the most part...I really need my space and alone time to keep my energy alive...or I will go nuts..and get depressed..

That people are very sceptical regarding western medicine science that is understandable and does not need further explanations.

Actually, I've always trusted fully all my doctors , etc. But I've been trying to heal myself from things instead of relying on Western medicine the past few years....and I've been having good results...




Better we can deal with the prevention than with the too late situations.

Yes, that's exactly what i am doing,,,

A prevention is for instance that a Tibetan is visited by the Doctor also if the person is healthy.
So the regular healthy cheque that is a good form of prevention.

Speaking of Tibetan Doctor....I went to one a few years ago, and was recommended the vegan diet for my health


Further the right food and mentality.

Yes...a proper diet for you body type...mental health is vital, my problems all stem from too much stress...





But the famous saying does always count:

What is medicine for some body
Is poison for another one and vice versa.


That is true...




But all in all we should be careful with others opinion because of course not everybody must have the same opinion regarding alternatives. And that has many understandable reasons of course.

Yes, I'm finding out the hard way !




Have a nice and fruitful day and do not post any more such grave things here, it causes discomfort to others.

Yeah, normally I don't...this was all a big surprize to me !!!





Mutsug Marro
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lostitude
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Re: Debunking foil-hat theories on public health

Post by lostitude »

Kunga Lhadzom wrote: I also just read it for the first time this morning (what a coincidense !) I skimmed through it, and it looked like it said in the original version to cure people, and the Modern version : "prevention was preferable to cure" :shrug:
I think you misunderstood it. It simply means that it's better to prevent the onset of a disease than to cure it once it has started. It's actually the opposite of what you understood. A greedy doctor could wait until his patients fall ill, so that he can earn money curing them. The oath forbids this by saying that a doctor should do his or her best in order to not let diseases occur in the first place. It could be for example: educating someone who has harmful eating habits even if this person is still healthy, instead of waiting for this person to become obese and have diabetes and cholesterol and high blood pressure and try to cure all those diseases.
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Re: Debunking foil-hat theories on public health

Post by A Ah Sha Sa Ma Ha »

lostitude wrote:
Kunga Lhadzom wrote: I also just read it for the first time this morning (what a coincidense !) I skimmed through it, and it looked like it said in the original version to cure people, and the Modern version : "prevention was preferable to cure" :shrug:
I think you misunderstood it. It simply means that it's better to prevent the onset of a disease than to cure it once it has started. It's actually the opposite of what you understood. A greedy doctor could wait until his patients fall ill, so that he can earn money curing them. The oath forbids this by saying that a doctor should do his or her best in order to not let diseases occur in the first place. It could be for example: educating someone who has harmful eating habits even if this person is still healthy, instead of waiting for this person to become obese and have diabetes and cholesterol and high blood pressure and try to cure all those diseases.

Yes...after I re-read it I thought that's probably what it means...it was kinda tricky wording...I had to read it over many times, as I thought it sounded strange....well, thank you for the clairification...

:namaste:
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Re: Debunking foil-hat theories on public health

Post by lostitude »

You're welcome :) I don't know how current it still is in other countries, but in mine, medical students have to raise their right hand and recite it aloud before they get the diploma. It's usually a very emotional moment.
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Re: Debunking foil-hat theories on public health

Post by A Ah Sha Sa Ma Ha »

I've also been in the medical field all my life...not a doctor...but working with patients .

What do you think this means :
teach the secrets of medicine
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/hippo ... today.html

SECRETS ?????

My imagination runs wild whenever I hear that word !

:crying:
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Re: Debunking foil-hat theories on public health

Post by catmoon »

Kunga Lhadzom wrote:
Can you imagine our public health system making it mandatory for everyone to eat healthy, and ban GMO's and all toxins from our diets ?
Can you imagine the FDA banning all carcinogens from the food supply ?
Can you imagine having massage therapy covered in insurance policies ?
Can you imagine America so healthy we rarely ever get sick and hospitals empty ?
Can you imagine us taking our health into our own hands and not tolerating the psuedo "health" (death) care system to drug us anymore ?

First point - no I can't see healthy eating becoming mandatory. People are not going to give up Pepsi and Doritos without a fight. Banning GMO's would be great though.
Second point - I'd like to see that happen. at least for carcinogens that have a reasonably large chance of causing problems
Third point - I could see that. In some circumstances it qualifies here in Canada
Fourth point - Yes, something like that could definitely happen
Last point - Nope traditional medicine is just too good at some things. However, I do see a lot more people getting leery of getting a medication then another for the side effects, then a third for the side effects of that one....
I think people are taking more control over how they are treated. But I don't think total control is a good idea, cuz then you are being treated by an amateur - oneself.
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Re: Debunking foil-hat theories on public health

Post by Johnny Dangerous »

Just FYI, some insurance does cover massage, in fact the entire time I worked ad a therapist it was on people who receiving injury treatment, using their insurance.

My current plan covers 16 treatments per year. Yay for the Left Coast.
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Re: Debunking foil-hat theories on public health

Post by Wayfarer »

A difficult topic. I'm a sceptic regarding homeopathy and a lot of alternative medicines. I encourage critical thinking and an appalled by the anti-vaccination movement which I think borders on criminal. But then, I can't stand Brian Cox because he's a died in the wool materialist.

Here in Australia a local council dominated by ageing hippies has banned fluoridation, which I also find appalling. As Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, 'everyone has a right to their own opinions, but not to their own facts'. I agree with that, but then I also disagree with what many people take to be 'scientifically respectable'. So it's a tough topic. (Although someone very near and dear did get cancer 10 years ago and I firmly believe that if it weren't for modern medicine she would have died, and it hasn't returned, either.)
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Re: Debunking foil-hat theories on public health

Post by lostitude »

Kunga Lhadzom wrote:I've also been in the medical field all my life...not a doctor...but working with patients .

What do you think this means :
teach the secrets of medicine
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/hippo ... today.html

SECRETS ?????

My imagination runs wild whenever I hear that word !

:crying:
This word is nowhere to be found in the actual oath, the sentence you quote is from the author of the article, who probably wants to mimic the esoteric vibes that 4th century BC physicians supposedly enjoyed cloaking themselves in.
Besides I have just discovered that current Oathes vary from one country to the next, because obviously they could not stick to the 4th century BC version which prohibits things that are allowed today in many jurisdictions (such as abortion) and imposes duties such as caring for and providing for your 'master' who taught you medicine.
So it might be interesting for you to look for the oath as used (if at all) in your own country...
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Re: Debunking foil-hat theories on public health

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Jesse wrote:
DGA wrote: For the anti-flouridation Dr. Strangelove set:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... -australia
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/featur ... jean-choi/
The average loss in IQ was reported as a standardized weighted mean difference of 0.45, which would be approximately equivalent to seven IQ points for commonly used IQ scores with a standard deviation of 15.* Some studies suggested that even slightly increased fluoride exposure could be toxic to the brain. Thus, children in high-fluoride areas had significantly lower IQ scores than those who lived in low-fluoride areas. The children studied were up to 14 years of age, but the investigators speculate that any toxic effect on brain development may have happened earlier, and that the brain may not be fully capable of compensating for the toxicity.
Has links to studies, one of which doesn't load but I found it elsewhere: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25446012

also:
As of February 2015, a total of 51 studies have investigated the relationship between fluoride and human intelligence, and a total of 34 studies have investigated the relationship fluoride and learning/memory in animals. Of these investigations, 44 of the 51 human studies have found that elevated fluoride exposure is associated with reduced IQ, while 32 of the 34 animal studies have found that fluoride exposure impairs the learning and/or memory capacity of animals. The human studies, which are based on IQ examinations of over 11,000 children, provide compelling evidence that fluoride exposure during the early years of life can damage a child’s developing brain.
http://fluoridealert.org/studies/brain01/
Interesting that no one has commented on this post by Jesse. They are reputable studies. Sure, the effect is not huge, but statistically significant.
Virtually no human studies in this field have been conducted in the U.S., said lead author Anna Choi, research scientist in the Department of Environmental Health at HSPH.
Isn't that bizarre?

I think we should be careful not to rush to align ourselves with either side but take care to examine the actual evidence.

_/|\_
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Re: Debunking foil-hat theories on public health

Post by seeker242 »

Adder wrote:
seeker242 wrote:"Gluten Intolerance Debunked, Gluten-Free Marketing Thrives" http://upr.org/post/gluten-intolerance- ... ng-thrives

"Gluten Intolerance May Not Exist" http://www.forbes.com/sites/rosspomeroy ... not-exist/

"A balanced look at gluten sensitivity"
https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/a- ... nsitivity/

Can I have the gluten back now please? I love that stuff! Hail Seitan! :rolling:
Some people actually cannot have gluten in their diet at all, like my wife. It's not a fad for her, it was the cure for an autoimmune disease Western medicine has no cure for.

And I'm sensitive to strong electromagnetic signals like cellphones and wifi, so I think a tinfoil hat might be a good idea :spy:
What a pair we make LOL.
Celiac disease is a legitimate disease, all the researchers have no doubt about the fact the some people legitimately cannot eat it. :) However, people without that immune disorder are the people they are referring to here. :) I would not say western medicine has no cure for immune disorder regarding gluten. It's a well known disease now and the cure is just to not eat gluten. :)

There was a new study about this that was just published. They found only one-third of people diagnosed with non-coeliac gluten sensitivity actually experience adverse side effects from gluten intake. Most of the people who claimed they are gluten intolerant, could not even tell when they were eating gluten and when they weren't. This lends support to the idea that these people don't actually have any problems with gluten itself and that it's a purely psychological effect known as the Nocebo Effect. Effects from nocebo are real effects, that cause people actual suffering, but they originate from a purely mental phenomenon. In other words, just thinking that gluten is bad for you, is itself, the only reason why one experiences ill effects from it. For SOME people. :) Maybe. Although, some researchers are speculating that it is not gluten that is the problem, but a particular type of hard to digest carbohydrate called "FODMAP".

It's an interesting study. :)

"Most Gluten-Sensitive Individuals Can't Tell If They're Eating Gluten-Containing Flour or Gluten-Free Flour" http://www.realclearscience.com/blog/20 ... 09367.html
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Re: Debunking foil-hat theories on public health

Post by A Ah Sha Sa Ma Ha »

I read some where that GMO wheat is the reason there is a gluten problem...in the past when wheat was GMO free, there wasn't this problem..

http://sustainablepulse.com/2014/02/19/ ... eb-yu1Viko
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Re: Debunking foil-hat theories on public health

Post by A Ah Sha Sa Ma Ha »

Johnny Dangerous wrote:Just FYI, some insurance does cover massage, in fact the entire time I worked ad a therapist it was on people who receiving injury treatment, using their insurance.

My current plan covers 16 treatments per year. Yay for the Left Coast.

THAT is soooooooo wonderful !!!! :thumbsup:


Yes..i am aware that some massage is covered if one has a certain type of injury...but massage should be looked upon as routine health care because of all the stress and unhealthy lifestyle, etc in this modern world. I'm a firm believer in massage therapy....I rarely ever get vacations...and stress has ruined my health....massage is like going to heaven for an hour...and we need all the wonderful blissful healing healthy stuff we can get in this samsara, to be fit warriors...IF I WAS PRESIDENT, I WOULD MAKE MASSAGE COVERED BY HEALTH CARE, AND YOU COULD HAVE AN HOUR MASSAGE EVERY DAY, OR ANYTIME YOU FELT YOU NEEDED ONE !!!

:twothumbsup:
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Re: Debunking foil-hat theories on public health

Post by lostitude »

Kunga Lhadzom wrote:I read some where that GMO wheat is the reason there is a gluten problem...in the past when wheat was GMO free, there wasn't this problem..

http://sustainablepulse.com/2014/02/19/ ... eb-yu1Viko
Celiac disease appeared well before GMO. Some even think it appeared with wheat consumption itself.

https://www.coeliac.org.uk/gluten-free- ... -2015-exg/
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