Stop giving medical advice, now.

Where I come from, you don't become a doctor just by saying so and throwing a few vague statements. And yes, you may be a part of the problem, not a part of the solution.

Big Pharma Money Spent on Marketing Exceeds Drug Development Costs

(NaturalNews) Why are pharmaceuticals so expensive? This question has been asked for many years. In fact this was the question asked by Senator Estes Kefauver (D) in the late 1950s. Senator Kefauver was the first to put together an indictment against the business practices of the pharmaceutical industry. In fact he lobbed three charges at the pharmaceutical industry at the time.

They were the following:

1) Patents sustained predatory prices and excessive margins

2) Costs and prices were extravagantly increased by large expenditures in marketing

3) Most of the industry's new products were no more effective than established drugs on the market(1).
(...)
The pharmaceutical industry spends nearly U.S. $57.5 billion on marketing and U.S. $31.5 billion on R&D

Big Pharma Money Spent on Marketing Exceeds Drug Development Costs

This is horribly, terribly wrong.

You are not important enough to create a new thread. Reply to specific threads with specific arguments. What you're doing is equivalent to "La la la I can't hear you !". Simply rude. You are cutting away all arguments made so far, you don't even consider them.

Common sense applies to everything. I wouldn't come here for medical advice, but I may find some here. When I do, I research it to see if there's anything on the subject. A doctor can be wrong, too. I try to verify all important information with several sources. I could give an example, but this could breathe life in this thread and I want it to die.

Let us not be distracted from this warning, which certainly has its merits...

Part of the problem, QV, is that the media is uncritical of press releases from various organisations with their own agendas. It's rare to go a month without a headline saying X is good for you, and then the next month X is bad for you, all without disclosing sample sizes, confidence intervals, methods, sources of bias, etc.

At the typical 5% confidence interval, one in twenty trials will report erroneously.

I think the best advice anyone unqualified can give is:

* If it hurts, stop.
* If you're at all unsure, ask for qualified advice.

Airbag, I am fond of your passion and enthusiasm, but I feel that the warning does have some ground. I think what turns me off most about your post is stating that someone new isn't important enough to create a new thread. Would you be so quick to say so if the thread supported your beliefs and ideas instead of contradicting them? What keeps me coming back to this forum is that everyone has an equal say. My say, your say, everyone's say is just as equal as B. Mayfield's, or Rumel's or Artform's or Darwin's or Ten's or anyone.

I understand that there are many aspects of the medical profession that push an angle that can contradict a patient's best health option. I work in a pharmacy. I know all too well the creating of new drugs for what seems like a means to extend a patent. However, I will not claim to be a medical professional. I'm going into Radiation Therapy. I'm studying cancer. This week specifically was prostate cancer. I'm just now starting clinicals where I can see patients and assist in the treatment. Yet even with my anatomy and physiology studies, as well as my experience in healthcare, I would never pretend to be qualified enough to give advice. The kicker is, even if I was a full blown medical doctor quite capable of a multitude of diagnostic skill and ability to treat, this would still be enormously difficult to do via the internet. There is a reason a doctor sees a patient one on one. While symptoms may be universal in some regard, always the patient is individual.

I do like that men and women can come here to share what is going on with them, and what worked for them, but I would urge us all to take it at that. Someone's personal experience and sharing. Which is why I like Airbag's statement that this method can often lead to research and open discussion. There is certainly nothing wrong with being inspired to discuss with a physician some of the treatment options that others talk about. But, studies can only show and support what they set out to. Meaning, like QV said, are they biased? Are they comprehensive enough? There is nothing wrong with bringing all the evidence to a physician and let them make the judgement. Yes, doctors can be wrong. They have been before and will be again, but I trust my doctor to know a hell of a lot more than me.

I'm more annoyed by the fact that VQ made a new thread. I'd prefer that he answered in the other one. When you're continuing a topic in another thread, it's as if you're making your opinion more important than anybody else's. You make it look like you don't wish to respond to their arguments. Because everything prior to your new post effectively disappears.

An internet forum/message board is not a perfect medium. Restricting human speach to a specific subject is on many occasions artificial. I think mailing lists and newsgroups do a better job.

Sorry to plagiarize, but the message is serious.
I love this site and have found it really useful. I've benefited from many individual's paths, and been inspired by several members.
But (you knew this was coming, right?), I am often amazed at the medical advice given by some members here, often without the faintest clue what they're talking about, citing inaccurate or biased sources, or using somehow intuition or personal experience to generalize. At best, some of this is misleading; at worst, harmful.
I realize this is a controversial stance. Some will say "who are you to say?" Others will say that I'm part of the problem, being an MD/PhD Endocrinologist, obviously part of the allopathic consipiracy.
Well, I like to think of myself as broad minded (I'm here, aren't I?), and open to alternatives in medicine, hugely humbled by what we don't know about biology. And I do know a good study from a bad one, and how single studies cannot be generalized (many examples available), etc.
So, unless you are absolutely on point, my point holds.
OK, rant over. Fire when ready...
Respectfully,
QV

You are just a self-obsessed know-it-all with a piece of paper that says "MD"

Most of you western doctors are the most stupidest pieces of shit. (Not everybody but the majority) You kill people by drinking the kool-aid of the pharmaceutical industry. Mind you, I'm not anti-pharmaceutical - some drugs really are good and deserve to be kept in the market - I just hate a lot of the bullshit.

You know nothing. All you learn in western medicine education is how to prescribe dangerous drugs and do harmful surgeries.

The majority of you are fucking morons. FUCK YOU.

NOTE TO MODERATORS: I've always been civil on this forum. But I refuse to be civil with brain-dead self-absorbed egotistical know-it-all morons.

ansub-

i don't know who you are, but i can say that is the rudest post i have seen in this forum or in any of my travels on the internet. i hope that in a calmer moment you reconsider and either delete the post or edit it to say something constructive or meaningful. it is a mar on this forum.

to the rest of the people on this thread. what QV said has obvious merit. nobody will claim that western or any other kind of medicine is perfect. of course it is not, and QV specifically acknowledges that when he says he is " hugely humbled by what we don't know about biology." the complexity of biology and how our bodies work is overwhelming. that is also why when QV says that we should all be careful about giving medical advice of course he is right.

it is in our nature to try to find simplicity and easy solutions where there are none. this is why we each develop our own personal beliefs about how to pursue health and well-being, and also how we might draw conclusions from necessarily incomplete information and try to share what we think is correct with others.

on the other hand, QV, i think that you slightly over-dramatized in your posting. i don't disagree with anything you said, but you could have found a way to say it that was a little less instigating though i must say i am surprised at this reaction.

i hope that all people on this forum who read the advice of others, particularly medical, understand the limitations of what they read, and act accordingly.

finally i would specifically like to thank everybody in the medical profession. i have spent more hours in hospitals then i care to count, and i can assure you that as a generalization the people who work there, and in the wider medical profession, are working their asses off in a daunting context, faced with misery, sickness and death on a daily basis, and are doing hero's work. like everybody i have had my frustrations dealing with doctors, but whom among us can claim we are perfect? imperfection comes with the territory and our medical professionals are overwhelmed.

for better or worse capitalism is our economic system so along with almost any enterprise comes the attending imperfections of a money driven economy. there is no doubt that a better system can be imagined. but, having had my life saved by the generations of men and women who have sought to add to humanity's growing knowledge of how our bodies and illness works, i am extremely glad for what we do have.

ansub, on your behalf, i certainly hope that you never get seriously sick, and if you do, that your words here are not shared with those who will be laboring to save you.

darwin

personally as a general rule online everything l find is best to take at informational value.. and while allot maybe very interesting and useful my opinion is if there is a problem refer it to a doctor and never self diagnose but any information one can take with them maybe useful and helpful.

ansub-

i don't know who you are, but i can say that is the rudest post i have seen in this forum or in any of my travels on the internet. i hope that in a calmer moment you reconsider and either delete the post or edit it to say something constructive or meaningful. it is a mar on this forum.

ansub, on your behalf, i certainly hope that you never get seriously sick, and if you do, that your words here are not shared with those who will be laboring to save you.

darwin

I don't know who the doctor was who delivered me when I was born... But he took a knife and mutilated my penis with a procedure called "circumcision". Charged me to rob a part of my penis without my consent. Than that motherfucker turned around and sold it to cosmetic companies so some old sluts can look young again.

You want me to write something constructive? Okay skippy... I'll give you "constructive" and tell you exactly why I am disrespectful to the majority of doctors

Circumcision is a FRAUD. There is no benefit. It is not cleaner or more hygienic. It causes loss of sensitivity. Makes sex painful and unenjoyable for women because mutilated penis sucks the lubrications of the vagina. The lack of mobility in the skin makes sex less enjoyable for women and men.

SOURCES BELOW (For A Sheeple Like You Who Believes Every Word His Scumbag "Doctor" Says)

National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centers Intactivists
Index
Doctors Opposing Circumcision

I hope that in a calmer moment I may reconsider not to brutally murder that motherfucker mutilator. On a serious note, no - darwin - you have no right to go around with your holier than thou censorship bullshit. okay?

I have had so much bullshit done to me by these motherfuckers (besides circumcision which is just mutilation) against my right and consent. I certainly hope I never get sick again either since I'm not too keen on making any money for these greedy bastards. And no darwin, these motherfuckers can't really save you unless you are in a accident, serious fever/infection or serious injury.

They are useful sometimes but most of the time they are useless.

So please go tell that crap of being "constructive" to the majority of the western medicine minions (I don't hate all doctors.)

Circumcision is not practiced routinely by western medicine outside North America.

Circumcision is not practiced routinely by western medicine outside North America.

They then have my respect. But where I live, that is not the case.