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"Better"? Not necessarily.

Study: Crestor Riskier Than Other Statins
"The new study, based on side effects reported to the FDA, said kidney problems and muscle weakness were two to eight times more frequent among Crestor users than those taking other cholesterol-lowering medications like Lipitor, Zocor and Pravachol."
http://health.dailynewscentral.com/content/view/833/0

= 9J =

Try and get your learn on before making yourself sound like a jackass:

The findings revealed increased activity in the frontal lobe, where working memory is centered, and the anterior cingulum, which controls attention, in volunteers after consuming 100 milligrams of caffeine, the equivalent of about two cups of coffee. These areas showed no increased activity when the subjects drank the same fluid without caffeine in it.

"The increased activity means you are more able to focus," Koppelstaetter said. "You have more attention and your task management is better."

Well-meaning friends would mention Lance Armstrong, or another survivor, in an attempt to foster hope, but I had to explain that those "lump" type tumors were very different and in (relatively) easy-access locations. I used this analogy for her GBM... Mix salt (cancer cells) and sugar (normal cells) in a bowl and then try to remove only the salt. Every sugar cell removed is irreversible brain damage. If you leave even one salt crystal, everything grows back.

There are a lot of new treatments being investigated - Reovirus comes to mind. They're working on breast cancer at the moment, but it works on several types of cancer, like Metastatic Melanoma, as well. The problem is delivery as something like 99% of the population has antibodies for it. In addition, Scorpion Venom is being investigated for brain cancer. All too little, too late for now.

My best to you and yours.

Actually, HIV has become less deadly as time goes by. There's been selective pressure for it to kill the hosts more slowly:

http://health.dailynewscentral.com/content/view/1716/

Fixed it for you.

Actually, HIV has become less deadly as time goes by. There's been selective pressure for it to kill the hosts less slowly:

http://health.dailynewscentral.com/content/view/1716/

But annual checkups may be based more on local medical culture than scientific benefit, and so we're right back at square one, where we need to know what offers appreciable benefit.

Luckily we have the FDA looking out for our health and best interests (joke!).

You do realize that the FDA employees and their families use this medicine, right? They've got a bit of a vested interest in actually looking out for us.

Even to my surprise, a study from a couple years ago showed that Echinacea has been found to more than halve the risk of catching the common cold

More recent, better-controlled studies have said it has no more effect than a placebo. I mean, come on, READ the article you just linked: "The results in The Lancet Infectious Diseases conflict with other studies that show no beneficial effect." Here's one such study. Here's another. Here's a much more damning one, which found that "popular herbal medicines, including ginkgo, ginseng and garlic, can cause serious complications during surgery". Cherry-picking a positive study isn't doing research.

I'm sure if more research was done into natural and traditional remedies, many others would also be found to also have value.

Argument from ignorance and unstated major premise. You're implying that there HASN'T been much research done, either because you don't know or you don't accept the negative findings. You're quite wrong - herbal medicines and "traditional" remedies have been extensively studied and almost universally found not to provide the benefits their creators/practitioners claim. Hence the reason they're not allowed to claim to cure anything.

Problem is, if you can pick it from a forest or a field, there's no money in it for the shareholders... unless you can purify/extract/synthesize and patent it (after all, aspirin was originally derived from willow bark).

You claim that a company would not develop a medicine if it can't turn them a profit. Then you provide a direct contradiction of your claim. If no company had further developed aspirin, we'd still only get it from willow bark.

"State law takes precedence, according to our Constitution."

This sounds incorrect from what I've been tracking in the news in recent months; Federal prosecutors are actively pursuing California pot growers who believe they are protected by paperwork that declares it for "medicinal purposes" under the assertion that state laws cannot countermand federal laws. You cannot have a federally controlled substance given the all clear on a state level.

There are some interesting things in the news from recent years:

This one supports your claim from 2006
This one however discusses federal charges against a guy who, according to the article, in federal court has no medicinal defense - the state laws don't protect him one bit (2007).

There's plenty more material on the subject out there, but here's an interesting home base for the folks seeking to reform federal law with numerous links to relevant news.

"500,000 people suffering from a nasty but not life-threatening condition like that *is* more important than people with erectile dysfunction or getting women horny."

Sorry to pick on you, since this is a very common talking point, but why? Both conditions -- Crohn's and Erectile Dysfunction -- degrade the quality of life. It's not even clear to me that Crohn's degrades it more than ED. Imagine never being able to experience any kind of sexual pleasure. Most people would do an awful lot to avoid that. If I personally had to make the choice, I'd rather have intestinal surgery every few years than lose all ability to experience sexual pleasure for the rest of my life.

Now take into account that apparently FIFTY PERCENT of men will at some point suffer from ED. ( http://health.dailynewscentral.com/content/view/0001722/49/ ) That's approximately 62.5 MILLION AMERICANS. For perspective, that's 125 TIMES the number of Americans who suffer from Crohn's.

In this case, it makes all the sense in the world to prioritize a cure for ED over Crohn's.

Is it possible that your willingness to dismiss ED cures as a frivolous or vain use of medical research is a product of repression or puritanism?

Really, we're supposed to believe the study had exactly 49 participants? Not 50, or 150?

A total of 49 volunteers between 18 and 50 reportedly will receive the experimental vaccine.