IBM's Watson To Help Diagnose, Treat Cancer

House-Watson by HTH+NE1 · 2011-09-12 09:48 · Score: 1

"What is Lupus?"

--
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?

Re:House-Watson by bwintx · 2011-09-12 09:51 · Score: 1

"It's a trick question -- it's never lupus."

--
Discussion System prefs link: http://slashdot.org/users.pl?op=editcomm
Re:House-Watson by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-12 09:53 · Score: 0

Do you mean "Who is Lupus?"
Re:House-Watson by Jeremiah+Cornelius · 2011-09-12 10:57 · Score: 1

I'll take endocrine disorders, Alex.

--
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."

Glitch / Hacked Watson Equals by drpimp · 2011-09-12 09:48 · Score: 1

100K patients diagnosed as terminal. Thanks for playing.

In all seriousness though the data collection for this would call for some crazy data crunching which this system seems to do well.

--
-- Brought to you by Carl's JR

Limited treatment on the way by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-12 09:55 · Score: 0

Wow! Insurance data being used for treatment. This in no way will hamper the patient getting the best possible medical care for their condition. I can see no problems with this what-so-ever.

If it isn't obvious, this is tiered medical care at its finest. Sorry! You don't make enough income, and your dependents, upon your immenent death, won't be able to foot your lingering bills over the next decade. You get treatment plan B3 instead. Oh, and your dependents will be able to pay this off in 5 years at present salaries. Have a good 9 months of life!

Re:Limited treatment on the way by PopeRatzo · 2011-09-12 13:28 · Score: 3, Insightful

If it isn't obvious, this is tiered medical care at its finest. Sorry! You don't make enough income, and your dependents, upon your immenent death, won't be able to foot your lingering bills over the next decade. You get treatment plan B3 instead.
Of course, you're right. To the extent that any insurance company, including (especially) Blue Cross Blue Shield, is using the power of supercomputers, it's not to diagnose and treat disease, but to figure out more creative ways to NOT PAY for patients' treatment.
Let's not forget that the entire business model of health insurance companies is based on paying less for customer care than those customers paid into their policies. It's based on denying coverage. Think about that: the whole point of health insurance is to not treat patients, not treat disease.
This is why it's just insane to allow for-profit corporations to be involved at any level of health care, including pharmaceuticals. Think of all the money that is spent on researching new drugs. The entire thing could be paid for with public funds and the drugs could be made public domain and it would cost less than George Bush's Medicare Part D which was nothing but a trillion-dollar giveaway to the transnational pharmaceutical companies.
As long as we follow the for-profit model of health care, things are only going to get worse, and "medicine" is going to lead us to some very dark places. It already has.

--
You are welcome on my lawn.
Re:Limited treatment on the way by trout007 · 2011-09-12 15:12 · Score: 3, Insightful

Unfortunate you are correct with everything except for calling what we have in the US insurance. Insurance in all other areas of life is a way to pay a little cost up front in order to be spared the expense of a rare but costly event in the future. Examples?
You get homeowners insurance in case of a fire, burglary, storm damage. These events don't happen often. I've paid homeowners for 12 years with no claims.
You get car insurance to protect for accidents, liability in an accident, or having the car stolen. These are usually higher risks than homeowners insurance so the cost is more vs what is actually being insured.
Term life insurance. Pays whomever you want upon your death. Very cheap for the young and it gets much more expensive as you get old.
Health "Insurance" is no such thing. I use healthcare all the time. Weekly if you count my family. It is not insurance is is some sort or prepaid health service contract.
Whats the difference? All of the former insurance I don't want to use. I don't want my house to burn down, I don't want to get in a car accident, I don't want to die. The insurance company and I are on the same page.
But with healthcare if I'm paying for the service I'm going to use it. Everyone has aches and pains and sniffles. If you actually had to lay a doctor what it costs out of pocket you would take more care as to how you spent those dollars. Also doctors are to blame for having a monopoly on prescribing medicine. This forces what should be a 10 minute $4 trip to the pharmacy into a $80 afternoon.
If you eliminate doctors monopoly on drugs and go back to real insurance to cover things you can't pay for out of pocket you would see costs drop.

--
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Re:Limited treatment on the way by PopeRatzo · 2011-09-12 15:28 · Score: 1

Insurance in all other areas of life is a way to pay a little cost up front in order to be spared the expense of a rare but costly event in the future. Examples?
Unfortunately, medical care is not a "rare" event. Everyone needs medical care at some point. Unlike auto or homeowners' insurance which protects against a catastrophic unforseen incident, which many of the insured will never use, health insurance deals with situations that are definitely forseen, if not specifically known in advance. We all know that as we age, we will need more medical care, and we all know that the most expensive care comes at the end of life. The exceptions are increasingly rare.
And, if doctors were the ones who had the monopoly on drugs, I don't think we'd have near the expense. The problem is that the ones holding the monopoly are investment bankers and shareholders. And they don't give a goddamn if a lifesaving cancer drug costs $75,000 per dose as long as they see a profit on their investment.
I think the notion that "competition" creates innovation simply does not apply to the pharmaceutical companies. Especially since they are mostly competing with themselves, looking to come up with proprietary drugs to replace the ones whose patents are expiring. So, screw the patents. Let's fund all pharmaceutical research with public money, and base it on medical need rather than which drugs can show the biggest profit. Then, make every new drug public domain. The pharmaceuticals can still make their profit by manufacturing and selling the drugs.
We would see medical costs go down drastically, with better outcomes because peoples' access to treatments wouldn't depend on their wealth.

--
You are welcome on my lawn.
Re:Limited treatment on the way by PopeRatzo · 2011-09-12 15:32 · Score: 1

By the way, I notice a story in the Wall Street Journal which says that the total money spent on pharmaceutical research by all US corporations is about $95 billion per year. That's a fraction of what we pay for Medicare Part D, which is just a boondoggle to Big Pharma. And, they keep the all the profits and keep the prices as high as they can.
We could spend twice that much on research and make the drugs public domain and we'd be way ahead.

--
You are welcome on my lawn.
Re:Limited treatment on the way by DigiShaman · 2011-09-12 15:35 · Score: 1

Before we start bashing insurance companies, let's get to the root problem first. Such as, why is healthcare is so damn expensive in comparison to other industries? If it has to do with risk, what makes you think the Federal Gov would care for you more than the private industry?

--
Life is not for the lazy.
Re:Limited treatment on the way by trout007 · 2011-09-12 22:11 · Score: 0

I did forget to mention that patents are an anachronism that should be eliminated. I would also do away with the FDA as a regulatory body and just make it advisory. They can test drugs that are on the market and give their seal of approval. A person should be free to put in their body what they want. As long as the drug maker is truthful about the compound they are selling I would let them sell it with no liability. The human body is too complex to say if a drug is safe.
Also you made made my point about expenses. Imagine if auto insurance covered preventive maintenance. Can you imagine how expensive the insurance would be? Also people wouldn't shop around for service.
One finally thing is that I do think that emergency medicine should be treated like fire and police and be funded by local communities. The reason is there isn't enough time for someone to shop around for the best price. But along with that the doctors should not be liable for malpractice except for the case of malice. They a operating at a time where there is limited time and information. Just like you can't sue a cop or fireman for preventing you from being robbed or for stopping you house from burning down,

--
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Re:Limited treatment on the way by tehcyder · 2011-09-12 23:22 · Score: 1

But with healthcare if I'm paying for the service I'm going to use it.
As someone from the UK, with a more or less free National Health Sevice and cheap(ish) prescription charges I almost never go to the doctor or get drugs prescribed, and I have always been struck by so many Americans' near-hypochondria and obseesion with drugs and illnesses.

Your comment helps explains this, at least in part, as by contrast I consciously try not to use the NHS more than is absolutely necessary.

--
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Re:Limited treatment on the way by tehcyder · 2011-09-12 23:42 · Score: 1

Before we start bashing insurance companies, let's get to the root problem first. Such as, why is healthcare is so damn expensive in comparison to other industries? If it has to do with risk, what makes you think the Federal Gov would care for you more than the private industry?
Here in the UK, the "government" i.e. the NHS has to treat you regardless of your history or prognosis, although obviously the various free-market-loving governments of recent times have been trying to erode this principle as fast as they can, in preparation for privatising the whole thing, and making billions for themselves and their arsehole friends in the City.

--
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Re:Limited treatment on the way by PopeRatzo · 2011-09-13 00:27 · Score: 1

One finally thing is that I do think that emergency medicine should be treated like fire and police and be funded by local communities.

Not as long as there are infectious diseases that don't respect community boundaries.

But along with that the doctors should not be liable for malpractice except for the case of malice.
Malpractice is a red herring. It accounts for a much smaller percentage of health care costs than people think. It has to stay in place until a better way to protect patients from impaired or inept doctors is available.
Thanks for taking the time to reply and share ideas, trout007. I'm pretty sure we could solve a lot of the nation's problems with a pencil and paper and a few adult beverages.

--
You are welcome on my lawn.
Re:Limited treatment on the way by PopeRatzo · 2011-09-13 00:33 · Score: 1

what makes you think the Federal Gov would care for you more than the private industry?
Because we are the government, but we are most certainly NOT insurance companies. Even if you happen to work for an insurance company, you do not share in the profits. In fact, if you work for an insurance company, you leave more there than you take home(which is the case wherever you work).
Insurance companies have as their basic reason for existence profit. Government has as its basic reason for existence...well, read the Constitution.

--
You are welcome on my lawn.
Re:Limited treatment on the way by trout007 · 2011-09-13 02:03 · Score: 1

I don't know if my post was clear but the malpractice comment was only regarding emergency care not regular care.
One of the better ideas I've heard to replace malpractice for regular care is outcome based insurance. It would be like buying flight insurance before a flight. It pays out for certain events regardless of fault. So you could have the same thing when you go to a doctor. If you are having surgery you could buy insurance if something goes wrong. If it goes wrong it doesn't matter if the doctor was at fault it would pay out.

--
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Re:Limited treatment on the way by oPless · 2011-09-13 05:29 · Score: 1

Sorry, it's not Treatment B3 - it's you're category one, off to the burners with you...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Categories_of_Life

What could possibly go wrong? by idontgno · 2011-09-12 09:56 · Score: 2, Insightful

We already have insurance case evaluators overriding a practitioner's medical judgments. Now, we'll have evaluators PLUS a very expensive rules engine* versus the overworked GP.

*And what, prithee, does the price of the system have to do with its credibility? Everything. If you sink a lot of money into something like this, you've already bet your money on whether it's right or not. No one is installing a Watson rig with an expensive data warehouse just for lulz, and no one's going to be able to casually second-guess this thing without massive evidence. It's going to be right all the time or BC-BS will look like a dope for spending so much.

Beside, it won Jeopardy! It must be right!

--
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.

Re:What could possibly go wrong? by robot256 · 2011-09-12 10:13 · Score: 5, Interesting

The nice thing is that its result is not just spat out of a black box--it gives a pretty accurate confidence measure, and actually links back to the articles that led it to each conclusion. That means the doctor can go and read them for himself. He may find articles he never would have found otherwise, and become a better doctor for it. It also gives the basis upon which to challenge the computer in court, if it comes to that ("Toronto", anyone?). I think the hope of WellPoint is that it will allow doctors to learn from research faster and more efficiently, so that young doctors learn faster and old doctors stay current. The more the doctors on the front lines of medicine know, the better patient outcomes will be. Nobody is saying the computer is going to ever replace the doctors altogether.
Then the legal department will come and screw everything up, of course, but we can wait a little while before that happens.
Re:What could possibly go wrong? by emuls · 2011-09-12 10:27 · Score: 1

Except it's not being deployed for a hospital, it's being deployed for an insurance company. At what point to Doctor's ever enter this equation?
Re:What could possibly go wrong? by tgd · 2011-09-12 10:29 · Score: 1

Here's a joke for you:
What do they call the person who graduates last from Medical School?
Doctor.
As a patient, I'd like to know what sources my provider has consulted and based a diagnosis on. I don't want my health dependant on which PA or GP I get when I go to the doctors office or to the hospital. Doctors may catch the obvious things, but when its not obvious, your life literally depends on who you happen to get lucky enough to see. That's a pretty sad state of affairs, and its great if this helps.
Re:What could possibly go wrong? by Trepidity · 2011-09-12 10:30 · Score: 5, Interesting

Computers are actually better at certain kinds of diagnosis than the overworked GP, though, and have been for years. In particular, computers are very good at conditional probability, and at combining information from thousands of study results that a typical GP doesn't have time to keep up with. The MYCIN AI system beat most doctors in diagnosing blood infections over 30 years ago, but wasn't adopted in actual medical practice mainly for political reasons.

--
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Re:What could possibly go wrong? by Dunbal · 2011-09-12 10:32 · Score: 2

Yeah - "helping oncologists diagnose and treat cancer" my ass. More like: This patient has a very high probability of having cancer - drop his coverage, quick! Oh and after we cancel his insurance, tell him to get checked for cancer.

--
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Re:What could possibly go wrong? by ColdWetDog · 2011-09-12 10:32 · Score: 4, Interesting

The nice thing is that its result is not just spat out of a black box--it gives a pretty accurate confidence measure, and actually links back to the articles that led it to each conclusion.
A question and a comment.
First, how do you know this? It really didn't say how it is going to get an 'accurate confidence measure'? Which leads me to my comment - the completely untested assumption here is that the answer lies in the current literature, if only you could wade through it. That isn't at all clear to me. Much of the 'best' data comes from double blinded placebo controlled studies. The big problem here is that the patients are typically carefully selected for having as few other co morbidities as possible. That's very useful from a research situation but makes the data poorly generalizable to the average patient on the street who has no particular interest in being 'simple' (or rational or compliant). The rest of the medical literature is basically crap. "Expert" opinion which turns out to be wrong as often as not. Observational studies which almost always inflate the efficacy of treatments and can only provide correlation. Much of medicine has really never been studied carefully at all.
Next, if they're using any insurance company's billing data, well you might just as well consult rabbit entrails. In the US the vast majority of that data is entered in an obfuscated, outdated and thoroughly whimsical system called ICD-9 (International Classification of Diseases, version 9). The REST of the world with the possible exception of North Korea is on 10 - a system that is much more useful. But even using one of the more sophisticated medical database systems is still unlikely to give you the detail you need to actually treat someone.
Of course, there is little useful information on how this will work - whether the doc will consult this wonderful oracle or if the insurance company will send you a form letter six months after the patient died saying you should have done something different. If they are going to go through with this,, I hope to hell they are going to carefully monitor it's success (or lack thereof) over time. And do that honestly. My money is that it won't help all that much.

--
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Re:What could possibly go wrong? by grmoc · 2011-09-12 10:38 · Score: 1

This.
Re:What could possibly go wrong? by MimeticLie · 2011-09-12 11:00 · Score: 1

On a slightly less pessimistic note, it could be the continuation of a trend in the medical insurance industry to emphasize preventative care. At one point, my parents were getting about a call per week for my father from insurance company nurses trying to give him health advice (He has high blood pressure, among other things. However, he is also a doctor, so their efforts might have been misaligned a bit.).

I could see this being part of a similar system. It might even be better suited to being at your insurance company; with access to your medical records, it can connect symptoms and complaints from various different visits, even if the patient or GP doesn't connect them his or herself.
Re:What could possibly go wrong? by elsurexiste · 2011-09-12 11:23 · Score: 4, Interesting

Wikipedia suggests that the real reason was technical: loading the required knowledge into the system was painful. This is more related to my own experience: ESs don't get adopted because UI is crappy at bests.

--
I rarely respond to comments. Also, don't ask for clarifications: a brain and Google are faster, believe me!
Re:What could possibly go wrong? by Spikeles · 2011-09-12 11:46 · Score: 1

More likely, it'll become what Google already has. An external memory device.

The results of four studies suggest that when faced with difficult questions, people are primed to think about computers and that when people expect to have future access to information, they have lower rates of recall of the information itself and enhanced recall instead for where to access it.
Why remember that X is caused by Y when you can just input Y into a computer and it gives X?

--
I don't need to test my programs.. I have an error correcting modem.
Re:What could possibly go wrong? by tepples · 2011-09-12 12:20 · Score: 1

Why remember that X is caused by Y when you can just input Y into a computer and it gives X?
Disaster recovery in case of EMP or in case of The Change.
Re:What could possibly go wrong? by Oxford_Comma_Lover · 2011-09-12 12:59 · Score: 2

> your life literally depends on who you happen to get lucky enough to see.
This is why for anything serious, you are very careful about who you see. It's really a combination of luck and networking to reliable people. The hardest part (for a slashdotter) is finding one person who is good enough and knows enough that they will send you to what is probably the right place. Someone can have a wonderful reputation and be a bad surgeon, and sorting wheat from chaff is really, really hard, especially when the medical community is tight-lipped to begin with, and it's not like they provide patients with empirical information.

--
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
Re:What could possibly go wrong? by rjstanford · 2011-09-12 13:28 · Score: 3, Insightful

Here's a joke for you:
What do they call the person who graduates last from Medical School?
Doctor.
As a patient, I'd like to know what sources my provider has consulted and based a diagnosis on. I don't want my health dependant on which PA or GP I get when I go to the doctors office or to the hospital. Doctors may catch the obvious things, but when its not obvious, your life literally depends on who you happen to get lucky enough to see. That's a pretty sad state of affairs, and its great if this helps.
Here's some truth for you. There are ~310 million people in the US alone. There is one "best oncologist." Most of the people are never going to see him or her.
The good news, and some more truth, is that most of the people - even those with cancer - don't need to.
The bad news is that many of them will think that they do and bitch and moan when they don't.

--
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
Re:What could possibly go wrong? by scamper_22 · 2011-09-12 14:02 · Score: 1

Well hopefully... this results in a world where we don't need to work the GP.
The reality is that your average doctor really doesn't do anything that complicated that a computer can't match on average. They take symptoms, order tests...
What you really need to do is make sure it doesn't go nuts. I'm sure they could write in some safe guards and other health professionals like nurses could do a sanity check.
It's about time we recognize that 'quality' is not the only metric in healthcare. Availability, cost... factor in just like anything else.
If a computer can do image detection with 98% accuracy of a radiologist, we should use it.
If we can improve primary care by using Watson, we should allow it.
Will doctors accept it? They'll fight it as they like their monopoly... but for the greater good, we should fight for such choice.
Re:What could possibly go wrong? by nbauman · 2011-09-12 14:29 · Score: 2

Do you know any oncologists?
I've gone to lectures, and talked to a lot of them. I've heard that there are dumb oncologists, but I've never met one.
Oncologists are pretty smart. They *already* know the medical literature cold. There aren't that many high-quality clinical studies on a major cancer -- say, breast cancer -- and an oncologist who treats breast cancer will know them all. They may not have *read* them all, because they've heard the results of the studies when they were first reported at medical meetings. But they know them, and they understand the biological mechanisms of cancer as well as anybody knows.
And oncologists *already* use computers in those applications where it's useful. They have electronic medical records in at least the major hospitals. (Some doctors complain that EMRs make it too easy to fill up a medical record with irrelevant information that nobody has time to get through. The old paper records forced doctors to get to the point and concentrate on relevant information.)
PubMed http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed is free and probably the best medical database created for any money.
Oncologists aren't ashamed to search Google when they hit a dead end.
Peter Norvig wrote some great algorithms for Google, and they can do some wonderful things -- translate languages, finish your search request, and other amazing things.
Norvig was lucky. The kind of problems that doctors face haven't fallen to clever algorithms yet.
2 points:
(1) The best way to manage medical information is in a doctor's head. If computers can help, that's great, but don't get overconfident.
(2) You'll never know if a particular computer application works in medicine until somebody does a well-designed randomized controlled trial to find out -- the old scientific method. The results of computers in medicine are mixed. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. If your life is important, use the scientific method.
Re:What could possibly go wrong? by c0lo · 2011-09-12 15:43 · Score: 1

Why remember that X is caused by Y when you can just input Y into a computer and it gives X?
I'm afraid cancer may be caused by many things... in there turn, these many things may or may not always result in cancer.

--
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Re:What could possibly go wrong? by Vellmont · 2011-09-12 17:54 · Score: 1

Doctors may catch the obvious things, but when its not obvious, your life literally depends on who you happen to get lucky enough to see.

Choosing a doctor isn't luck. Do your research, get recommendations, and it helps a lot to not live in podunck. Then you have to do your OWN research if you get sick. Relying on the magic doctor to give you the right answer is a fools game. Any good GP will refer you to a specialist if you need it. Don't be afraid to ask for one yourself.
There's many ways to get good health care. None of them are based on luck.

--
AccountKiller
Re:What could possibly go wrong? by Vellmont · 2011-09-12 18:08 · Score: 1

The problem isn't not being able to see "the best guy". The problem is avoiding seeing the bottom 20-30 percent or so. Think about whatever profession you're in. Now think about the worst colleagues you've had (moron, headstrong, wrong most of the time, etc). You think the distribution is THAT much different in medicine?

--
AccountKiller
Re:What could possibly go wrong? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-12 20:33 · Score: 0

Much of the 'best' data comes from double blinded placebo controlled studies. The big problem here is that the patients are typically carefully selected for having as few other co morbidities as possible. That's very useful from a research situation but makes the data poorly generalizable to the average patient on the street who has no particular interest in being 'simple' (or rational or compliant).
At least for cardiovascular and metabolic disease, and I suspect more widely, the opposite is true. Most clinical trials are conducted using patients who have as many risk factors as reasonably possible for the endpoints of interest. E.g. if heart attack/heart disease/stroke are the endpoints that the trialled drug is intended to reduce risk for, the trial will typically be conducted using patients who are old, male, high BMI, high blood pressure, with previous cardiovascular events, etc. Why? Cost. By using high risk individuals, the trial will require smaller numbers of patients to be followed up for a shorter period of time before a statistically significant benefit of the trialled drug can be shown, and hence it costs the pharmaceutical company less to fund the trial.
Re:What could possibly go wrong? by Rich0 · 2011-09-12 23:12 · Score: 1

That's nice if you're planning a procedure where you can schedule a date.
If you are in the hospital because you just had a stroke or heart attack then it isn't like you can take a month to work your network.
And most likely for the average person their network isn't worth much as you suggest. I get better review data when making a purchase decision on amazon.com.
Sure, evidence based medicine has its limitations, but what are you going to replace it with? "Hi, Medicare, this is Dr. Smith, and yes, I think that mailing my practice a check for $50k is the best way to handle this patient's problem, thanks."
Re:What could possibly go wrong? by Rich0 · 2011-09-12 23:15 · Score: 1

Yup, and now think about the kinds of people getting ahead at work. Is it because they really write better code or offer better support or whatever than the next guy, or are they better at schmoozing? So, do you think that the doctor that has some big long title next to his name is likely to be different.
I've met some good doctors and some bad doctors in my life. You just work with what you have sometime. If you need to see 5 doctors quarterly chances are you can't really manage with each of them being in a different state.
Re:What could possibly go wrong? by xyourfacekillerx · 2011-09-13 00:47 · Score: 2

The nice thing is that its result is not just spat out of a black box--it gives a pretty accurate confidence measure, and actually links back to the articles that led it to each conclusion.
I'm trying to imagine the scenarios in which a doctor would be forced to resort to using a sophisticated computer to diagnose a patient with cancer, but if he doesn't have the time to refer to a good oncologist, what makes you think the doctor has the time, or is even qualified to understand, the articles in question, so that by referring to them personally the doctor could confirm the diagnosis? Look, I KNOW my family practitioner doesn't have the specialized training to catch cancer. I KNOW that reading articles and reviewing billing practices (a terrible metric if you think about it) would lend any sort of qualified expertise. So, I really, really have doubts that a computer database - no matter how spectacular the algorithm behind the "information compiling" may be - is a better resource than my ignorant family practitioner.

All it takes is one false negative in a case where an oncologist could have made a positive diagnosis, and it proves relying on the computer is unsafe. Are they going to put it through 900 rigorous trials like I just described? Would you trust your wife or daughter's illness to Watson if they don't? Even if they do?
Re:What could possibly go wrong? by Oxford_Comma_Lover · 2011-09-13 01:35 · Score: 1

There are several interrelated issues here.
First, yes, if it's a stroke or a heart attack and you don't already have a contact that can get you information about who to see very quickly, then it's luck of the draw. A network may still be useful for further work, if you need it.
And yes, the average person doesn't have the right contacts to know who they should be seeing, and doesn't know how to ask the right questions. If they did, there would be a lot more competition to be a good doctor, and also attempts to game the system (e.g. by taking only easier cases). I know of communities where if you get cancer, you die from it. And that really shouldn't be the case in many instances if you have good docs.
Your last point seems to be that without medicare, docs would charge astronomical prices. In reality, without medicare, the market would control the price rather than an oligopoly controlling it (which forces prices way up for people who aren't part of that system, btw). Right now, there are huge transaction costs involved in paying for medicine, and huge uncertainties about cost, and you have to fight about paying your doctor out of the money that you have been putting into a big risk pool in case of emergency. Some docs would become much more expensive, but others would not, and docs would have much more incentive to do the right thing. With scheduled fees, docs get the same amount whether they do a crappy one-hour operation or a very precise and thorough five-hour operation, if they are, in a very general way and under some label, the same operation. So the truly excellent docs aren't marginally compensated for doing a better operation. The only incentive is saving the patient's life. Which is a big incentive for some, but just not enough for many--especially when most aren't trained superbly to begin with.

--
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
Re:What could possibly go wrong? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-13 01:53 · Score: 0

Plus, its being paid for by Wellpoint, wow your right. What could possibly go wrong?
Re:What could possibly go wrong? by tgd · 2011-09-13 02:12 · Score: 1

The good news, and some more truth, is that most of the people - even those with cancer - don't need to
The people dying of cancer right now probably disagree with you.
Re:What could possibly go wrong? by robot256 · 2011-09-13 09:44 · Score: 1

All it takes is one false negative in a case where an oncologist could have made a positive diagnosis, and it proves relying on the computer is unsafe. Are they going to put it through 900 rigorous trials like I just described? Would you trust your wife or daughter's illness to Watson if they don't? Even if they do?
I don't want to dispute your point, but for the sake of argument, how many false negative diagnoses are made by human oncologists? I understand that a false negative is more serious than a false positive because you would always get a second opinion on a positive diagnosis but not necessarily a negative one.
I actually didn't fully appreciate that they were trying to use it specifically against cancer. I thought it would be more useful in a general practice, where a few symptoms could correspond to multiple different diseases, and the computer could help pick which one. I still don't think they're trying to replace skilled oncologists. This could definitely get hairy, but I'm still willing to give computers the benefit of the doubt and compare them with humans on even ground.
Re:What could possibly go wrong? by Rich0 · 2011-09-13 23:07 · Score: 1

Medicare was just an example - insurers in general control prices, and necessity of procedures.
If you want to have a free market you need a couple of things:
1. Effective patient choice. If a patient can't actually choose what doctor will do the work, then they have no negotiating power, and uncontrolled prices will rape them. A patient has no choice if they are unable to make a decision, or if the facility they are at only makes one doctor available to them (or all the doctors at a facility charge the same price), or if there is risk involved in transferring to another facility. All of these are often the case in acute care - so acute care is a very poor candidate for free market pricing.
2. Knowledge. If it is hard for a patient to compare the quality and cost of services from one facility to another, then there is little incentive for those facilities to improve either.
3. Free supply. The number of doctors is something which is controlled by the industry to ensure a shortage overall. A high level of regulation around licensing ensures that the industry controls carry the weight of law. To be a free market, then anybody should be able to set up a practice by following well-documented regulations, and any regulation on licensing those facilities and practitioners must be quick and fairly low-cost, and should not require certifications or diplomas issued by anybody but the state (again quickly and at low cost). Anything else just isn't a free market to begin with. Car repair is a free market because I can start my own garage with minimal fuss assuming I can convince people that I know how to fix cars. Maybe medicine shouldn't be a free market, but if so we shouldn't just pretend that it is.
There really is no band-aid solution to the healthcare crisis. There are lots of things that do need to change. A few that I'd start with would include:
1. Publication of price lists. Every practitioner or facility must publish a price list prominently. The prices on the list are what get charged to everybody. Negotiating different rates with different payers is forbidden, and not collecting the full fee from some patients is forbidden. They can either accept patients at the published price, or not. Suddenly the guy without insurance pays the same amount as Medicare or Aetna or whatever.
2. Single-billing/accountability. You go to the hospital, the hospital sends you a bill for whatever was on the price list. You pay the bill, you're done. Doctors are either employees or sub-contractors of the hospital, and dividing the spoils is their own internal problem to figure out. If somebody messes up, the hospital is 100% liable to the patient, and then internally they can all fight over whose fault it is. More-or-less this is how insurance companies treat the situation anyway - a typical large-procedure explanation of benefits that I've seen tends to just go down the list and disallow most of the charges on it just paying a certain amount to the doctor and to the hospital based on what was done. Individual payers end up having to haggle with 87 different providers and never really know when the next bill will come. You can't really have a published price-list system if nobody knows what lists they have to check.
3. Published quality metrics. On the price list you have a column that indicates success rate for each procedure. Obviously these need to be standardized. Maybe have columns for % whose condition required no further intervention for n years, and % of patients who had serious complications. This requires auditing to work.
These kinds of steps would actually improve the whole system regardless of how we ultimately reform it. All are necessary for a free market to work effectively, and they would improve the current system and provide more information for the design of a single-payer system. I am under no illusions that they alone would entirely fix the problem. However, if you want shopping for health care to resemble shopping at Walmart you need to make the experience more like shopping at Walmart.
Re:What could possibly go wrong? by rjstanford · 2011-09-16 10:03 · Score: 1

The good news, and some more truth, is that most of the people - even those with cancer - don't need to
The people dying of cancer right now probably disagree with you.
I'm sure they do. According to cancer.org there are around 1.6 million of them in this country. Which one would you like the "best oncologist" in the US to see first? Or should she just stop sleeping and try to spend a full 19 seconds with each?
Or is it just barely possible that having some of those people dying of more normal instances of cancer see, oh, the 2nd best oncologist while the best one focuses just a wee bit more might be more productive?

--
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!

'idocracy' by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-12 09:57 · Score: 0

Who tagged this 'idocracy'? Is that even a word?

If this were an Apple medicine machine, maybe it would be iDocracy.

Re:'idocracy' by electron+sponge · 2011-09-12 10:08 · Score: 2

Who tagged this 'idocracy'? Is that even a word?
If this were an Apple medicine machine, maybe it would be iDocracy.
Idiocracy
Tag whoosh?
Re:'idocracy' by Riceballsan · 2011-09-12 10:17 · Score: 1

It is the name of a movie about a future where mankind has evolved backwards (due to stupid people being more likely to have offspring then smart people), repeated over hundreds of years, at one point in the movie, it shows a hospital, where they basically hand everyone probes "this one goes in your ear, this one goes in your mouth, this one up your nose, and this one goes up your butt, no wait, this one goes in your mouth, this one up your butt... er... ummm....
Re:'idocracy' by Samantha+Wright · 2011-09-12 11:49 · Score: 1

Not when there's a painfully obvious typo in it, it isn't.

--
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
Re:'idocracy' by Thiez · 2011-09-12 12:41 · Score: 1

What a ridiculous concept. Evolving backwards? No such thing.
Re:'idocracy' by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-12 20:37 · Score: 0

You are painful. This kind of smart-ass non-constructive comments are annoying

Watson says you are going to die anyway by parallel_prankster · 2011-09-12 10:01 · Score: 1

I can see this being used as evidence for not paying for treatments/surgeries etc.

Re:Watson says you are going to die anyway by Anachragnome · 2011-09-12 13:51 · Score: 1

"I can see this being used as evidence for not paying for treatments/surgeries etc."
Or a way to side-step responsibility for medical decisions in the context of malpractice suits. Or perhaps an "expert" witness...
"Ladies and Gentlemen, I will now prove, with the help of Dr. Watson, that Ms. Swinebottom was killed at the hands of..."
"Excuse me. DOCTOR Watson? This box has a degree in medicine?"
"Well, no. But it does have available to it the entire store of medical literature, and can make billions of calculations..."
"So, it isn't a doctor?"
"No, but it costs almost as much as one."

I'm a medical student.. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-12 10:03 · Score: 0

I once heard a story about a doctor who had a surgery with a big hollow tree next to the garden path. One day they cut it down and found it had been stuffed full of prescriptions. A lot of those patients just wanted to talk to someone, or hear someone say that they hoped they got better.

Watson might get a correct diagnosis, but it will never have the insight to ask a patient who looks stressed out how they're sleeping and find out about their suicidal ideation, despite the fact they only came in with a sore foot.

Medicine is a science, and an art. It's easy to forget that.

Re:I'm a medical student.. by flimflammer · 2011-09-12 10:19 · Score: 1

I don't think anyone is suggesting we entirely replace doctors actually talking with their patients with this equipment. It's a tool like any other to give a doctor insight.
Re:I'm a medical student.. by Riceballsan · 2011-09-12 10:26 · Score: 1

True, but mental conditions also have physical side effects that can be detected. Heart rate, facial expressions etc... While I highly doubt a pre-recorded voice or an AI will ever handle that, I could see a computer being smart enough to flag people for a chat with a psychiatrist on par or better than your average doctor. You also forget, while many doctors are brilliant with bedside manner, there are also many that are brilliant on the medical side, know all the nuts and bolts of the human body, but know absolutely nothing on reading people.

better idea. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-12 10:03 · Score: 0

just start mentioning names of insurance companies and see what interesting questions Watson comes up with.
"Which company caused the most deaths by refusing proper treatment for ...".
Maybe throw in the names of the evaluators as well.

Tumor? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-12 10:04 · Score: 0

Will it have a cool 80's text-to-speech peripheral so that it can say "it's not a tumor!"?

Re:Tumor? by jamiesan · 2011-09-12 10:34 · Score: 2

Would you like to play a game? How about Global Thermo Nuclear War^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HJeopardy?

Long time coming... by understress · 2011-09-12 10:05 · Score: 2

Having had to deal with the medical world for the last few years with doctors trying to determine what is wrong with my wife (still no definitive answers yet), and have them treat her, I am shocked that something like this hasn't been done before.

Even a simple db that cross references diseases to symptoms / blood work results (and other test results) doesn't seem to exist. It's 2011, you'd think that doctors could order up a set of tests based on their initial thoughts, input the results to a program, and have the program guide them with possibilities to try and narrow down the search of what may be wrong. The symptoms that my wife has can be linked to MANY different diseases, but in the end, each disease has something that makes it unique. It should be a simple path of elimination. Test until you find the one disease that fits that persons set of results.

I'm not a medical doctor, but I've done a lot of research on the web about what is wrong with my wife (yes I know it's not all correct) and I'm shocked that twice now I've had to ask the doctor to perform some tests and find out if a certain condition exists, and it did. Simple, her symptoms are this, these blood tests could tell you yes or no if that's what you have.

Doctors seem to want to just prescribe something that should help the symptoms. How about we figure out what is wrong first and then treat appropriately?

I'm glad to see something like this finally being developed. Like I said, it's 2011, some of the ways things are these days is just crazy considering the computing power we have (personal, national, worldwide) available to us.

--
There are no stupid questions, only stupid people asking questions.

Re:Long time coming... by PRMan · 2011-09-12 10:13 · Score: 2

Consciously or subconsciously, most doctors make more money by treating symptoms repeatedly than by curing people. All-in-one systems like Kaiser would be the exception, since they own the hospitals, insurance plan and everything, they are incentivized to actually cure you so you stop costing them so much money!!!
This is a big problem in medical and dental insurance in this country.

--
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Re:Long time coming... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-12 10:16 · Score: 0

I want something like this but for cars. This does not exist. It is 'lets try dis and dig round in there and maybe fix it'.
Re:Long time coming... by sconeu · 2011-09-12 10:22 · Score: 2

I sympathize with you, understress. My wife and I went through 18 months of hell, with tons of red herrings, including a dismissal -- "Oh, you're just suffering from empty nest. It's psychosomatic." -- before she was diagnosed with ALS.
The problem with rare diseases is the old saying, "When you hear hoofbeats, look for horses, not zebras."

--
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Re:Long time coming... by elbonia · 2011-09-12 10:25 · Score: 1

Actually this has been going on for decades, since the early 70s at least, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/4920342 [nih.gov]. The major problems have been accuracy and having the computing power to process multi TB graphs and vast decision trees. The computer IBM is building is 80 Terra-flops, it wasn't until 98 that a 1 terra flop computer existed.
Re:Long time coming... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-12 10:32 · Score: 0

I don't know where you live but where I live Kaisers other name is Killer, I guess if you can't cure them cheaply enough the next cheapest thing is just to kill them.
Re:Long time coming... by ColdWetDog · 2011-09-12 10:39 · Score: 1

Even a simple db that cross references diseases to symptoms / blood work results (and other test results) doesn't seem to exist.
They do exist. See the Problem / Knowledge Coupler.

you'd think that doctors could order up a set of tests based on their initial thoughts, input the results to a program, and have the program guide them with possibilities to try and narrow down the search of what may be wrong.
That assumes that we have enough data to link a test or a series of tests / symptoms / findings to a disease. That also assumes that we know the disease the patient has. Neither assumption is true. We've really just cleaned off the low hanging fruit in this respect.
IF Watson has enough data programmed into it then it might be the kind of system that could answer your question. However, it seems to be attempting the same thing that PKC dose and that system hasn't really been the breakthrough that it's inventors had hoped for.
There is just a lot of stuff about the human body that we don't know....

--
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Re:Long time coming... by grmoc · 2011-09-12 10:39 · Score: 2

FYI, it has been done before. The computer did better than the GPs (and this was decades ago), however, noone was wanting to be the liable party.. and so, it never saw real use outside the study.
Score some more "benefit" for lawyers and the people who litigate.
Re:Long time coming... by jd · 2011-09-12 10:42 · Score: 2

Identification keys are commonplace in most fields. I wouldn't personally use something like Watson for that, though. I also agree that there are some amazing gaps in the medical databases that are around and that medicine should be more about the underlying mechanisms and less about the symptoms. (If you use thick enough paint, you can hide the cracks in a house that's subsiding. It won't stop the house collapsing, though.) The pressure for evidence-based medicine might help, but again that depends on what is considered evidence.
What is wrong is, however, a bit tougher. It used to be thought that in genetic conditions that one condition equalled one gene. Turns out that one condition can equal certain combinations of maybe a couple of hundred genes but not other combinations and even if all the genes are present in the diseased form, you still need the epigenome to be a certain way and that depends on the environment of not only the present but also the past 2 generations. In those cases, knowing what is wrong depends on quite a lot of information that is very difficult to obtain.
That's obviously not all illnesses, though. Viruses and bacteria should be much easier to directly observe and therefore directly treat. (I dislike intensely indirect observations via the immune response, as that only works if the immune response was correct in the first place AND if the observation of the response is valid. No matter how probable something is, if you stack enough probabilities together you end up with something exceedingly unlikely. If you're capable of direct observation, the probabalistic route makes no sense. And even the NHS can afford decent microscopes.)

--
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Re:Long time coming... by compro01 · 2011-09-12 10:47 · Score: 1

It should be a simple path of elimination
It's simple in the same way weather simulations are simple. It's simple by itself, but the problem grows exponentially as you expand it beyond trivial cases.
Basically, they're at the lower end of the class of intractable problems. In principle, they're solvable if you can just throw enough computing power at them. We're just getting to the point where that amount of power is obtainable.

--
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Re:Long time coming... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-12 10:59 · Score: 1

Kaiser is probably partially incented to cure the patient. As a person who has had Kaiser since I was a kid, it doesn't seem that they are though. For example, they tried to kill both me and my mom. For her, she had uterine cancer. They tried to tell her it was menopause and refused to make her an appointment with a specialist. She tried to GPs and they said the same. She made her own appointment with a specialist - had to wait 3 months since it was not a referral. Got scheduled for a hysterectomy the next week due to the cancer. I got severe food poisoning (and was unfortunately out camping). I had severe dehydration from it as I was "going from both ends". Kaiser advice center told my wife I had "influenza" and actually hung up on her. They drove me a hundred miles to the nearest community hospital where my body temp was 92 F, by which time I could not even close my hands. Overnight stay and several IV drips and some anti-nausea shots later I could finally go home. I probably wouldn't have made it if my wife waited another day to take me in. So - two pieces of Kaiser anecdote. Neither one seemed incented to help us get better though.
Re:Long time coming... by clem.dickey · 2011-09-12 11:13 · Score: 2

An anecdote from Dr. James C. Cain (former head of section, gastroenterology and internal medicine at Mayo), from about 1981:

A patient came to May Clinic with vague symptoms. One histologist remarked "This guy has weird blood. I've seen it before, but can't remember where." Several days later the histologist came back with the book where he had seen that "weird blood." Leprosy. Mayo didn't get many lepers.

"We were just lucky," said Dr. Cain, "that the histologist remembered the pattern. But imagine what we could do with a computerized search."
Re:Long time coming... by pclminion · 2011-09-12 12:51 · Score: 1

It's not like House. Diseases have many facets which may or may not express themselves. Thus it isn't a process of elimination, it is a problem of expectation maximization. This is of course another sort of problem that computers are quite good at solving. It just isn't generally available. And if it were, mystics and paranoiacs would decry it and demonize it. hope things work out for you.
Re:Long time coming... by Thing+1 · 2011-09-12 14:04 · Score: 1

There is just a lot of stuff about the human body that we don't know....
Which leads me to wonder: will Watson begin to recommend specific Jin Shin Jyutsu exercises to self-heal parts of the body, or a regimen of EFT to resolve the trauma of a loved one dying?

--
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Re:Long time coming... by Thing+1 · 2011-09-12 14:07 · Score: 1

Re-reading my post, and my signature: I wonder if Watson will be voted to death. Or, in other words, if the medical-industrial complex will proactively eliminate any threats to their revenue.

--
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Re:Long time coming... by Rich0 · 2011-09-13 00:01 · Score: 1

The only problem with expectation maximization is that if I wrote an algorithm that spat out "the patient just has a cold" I'd probably be right a good portion of the time. If it only output 20 diagnoses I'd probably be right 95% of the time.
The problem with medicine is people that aren't in the top 20 get almost no care. Or, they get care for one of their symptoms that is in the top 20.
Re:Long time coming... by Agent0013 · 2011-09-13 02:29 · Score: 1

Another point that would make a program have a hard time diagnosing a disease is that not everyone has the same symptoms. We have WebMD, you can put in symtoms and get possible diseases on some web sites. But when I look at the symptoms for something that I have, I only have around half of the listed symptoms. Other people will have different ones from the list. Then other diseases have similar symptoms and the ones you have might end up being in both lists. I think Watson has a better chance at helping out than any program that has existed before. It comes down to the natural language analysis. Without that you cannot parse through all medical literature matching things up. Everything would have to be inputted into the database in a specific manner for a program to use it. With Watson, it just uses literature that it is fed.

--

-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.

This is a good thing by JoshuaZ · 2011-09-12 10:08 · Score: 1

There's a fair bit of evidence that human doctors are not very good at actually making diagnoses. For example, doctors when given various simple probabilities and asked to estimate the likelyhood of diseases given specific test results often get the estimates drastically wrong. The classical form of this is when one has a disease that is rare but and with a low rate of false positives. Doctors often don't realize that if the disease is sufficiently rare it will turn out that the majority of tests will be false positives. Doctors also will sometimes miss very basic things due to simple human error or fatigue. Watson won't have these problems. Already machine learning systems are used by some to help predict and diagnose diseases http://www.openclinical.org/aiinmedicine.html. Watson will just be one more example of such.

Re:This is a good thing by ColdWetDog · 2011-09-12 10:41 · Score: 1

That link really didn't provide any evidence that AI has been useful in medical diagnosis. Just that people want it to be and expect it to be.
Got any real examples?

--
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Re:This is a good thing by Dunbal · 2011-09-12 10:43 · Score: 1

There's a fair bit of evidence that human doctors are not very good at actually making diagnoses.

Like for example the decline in infant and maternal mortality rates and the increase in life expectancy in the Western world over the past 60 years? I'd say there is a fair bit of evidence that human doctors are actually quite good at making diagnoses. What you want is perfect doctors. Since doctors are human, that just won't happen. I've never understood why people are so eager to trust a machine - designed by a human. But they do. This magical lab machine. That magical therapy machine. Much better than old Dr. Smith with his eyes, hands, ears and brain.

--
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Re:This is a good thing by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-12 12:26 · Score: 0

I'd really prefer Dr. Smith together with the machine. Most of my doctor visits are of the form "I've got these symptoms. They are not a problem for me right now, but if it is something that I need treatment for, I'd like to know now instead of later. I have no basis on which to evaluate these symptoms medically, so that's why I asking you, doctor." The doctor will then say "don't worry about it." If I could input my symptoms into a machine and it could tell me "less than 0.1% chance of anything important being wrong. If symptoms worsen, ask again." Then I think I could go to the doctor maybe once every few years. I've never known a doctor to do anything in response to symptoms other than what I can see is the standard procedure online. I trust a machine to do standard procedure better than a human, but even better with a machine AND a human.
Re:This is a good thing by Thing+1 · 2011-09-12 13:46 · Score: 1

Much better than old Dr. Smith with his eyes, hands, ears and brain.
My real-life Dr. Smith was hard of hearing, and I chose not to inform the entire staff and present patients of my maladies, so grabbed a different primary care physician. So, agree on all but the ears. :)

--
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.

Just crowd-source it by boristdog · 2011-09-12 10:11 · Score: 1

And call it Slashdoc.org.

Re:Just crowd-source it by Qzukk · 2011-09-12 10:57 · Score: 1

Been there, done that.

--
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.

Reminder: Watson Jeopardy 3 episode rerun tonight by mattack2 · 2011-09-12 10:11 · Score: 1

The rerun of the 3 episode Watson run on Jeopardy starts tonight.

Generally, I hate reruns, but this was entertaining enough to keep a copy of, IMHO.

Context by electron+sponge · 2011-09-12 10:14 · Score: 1

Watson demonstrated some difficulty establishing context for its answers on Jeopardy, e.g. "the Toronto answer". I can only assume there will still be a qualified medical doctor making the final call, and that Watson will just be an additional tool for the doctor to use.

Diagnosis.......Complete by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-12 10:15 · Score: 0

It seems you have a severe case of being a little pussy, I am prescribing that you man the fuck up.

Re:Diagnosis.......Complete by electron+sponge · 2011-09-12 10:18 · Score: 2

It seems you have a severe case of being a little pussy, I am prescribing that you man the fuck up.
Doctor: But Watson, the patient is a 5-year old girl!
Re:Diagnosis.......Complete by Dunbal · 2011-09-12 10:45 · Score: 3, Funny

It seems you have a severe case of being a little pussy, I am prescribing that you man the fuck up.
Doctor: But Watson, the patient is a 5-year old girl!
Not after all that testosterone she won't be.

--
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.

like the idea, not the execution by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-12 10:19 · Score: 0

Scares me that an insurance company is the one setting this up. It would be better for a collection of hospitals or even (gulp when I say this) our government spear headed a smart project like this.

Re:Then why waste money on cancer treatments? by robot256 · 2011-09-12 10:21 · Score: 2

That brings up a good point though. If the computer says it's a bad idea, and backs that up with evidence, might it not actually be a bad idea? The whole point of evidence-based medicine is to improve outcomes (and save money) by reducing late diagnosis, misdiagnosis and unnecessary procedures. If, in fact, the computer is right most of the time and you don't actually need that procedure, then it will save money. There will always be errors, whether it's the fault of a doctor or the computer; the goal is to reduce their cost and frequency.

Here's another take: If you assume a certain amount (or even most) unnecessary procedures are a result of defensive medicine and doctors covering there asses, then might not the computer give them an excuse to omit those procedures which, medically, they already know are unnecessary?

Given the choice by jd · 2011-09-12 10:26 · Score: 1

I'd rather take Linus Pauling's suggestion of a massive dose of vitamin C by IV than use a gaming console's recommendation for chemotherapy. (The follow-up study that discredited Pauling's findings has, in turn, been discredited in recent years, and vitamin C is extremely safe. That doesn't mean the method works, although there's good reason for thinking it might. It just means it's less likely to kill you than the other cures.)

--
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)

Re:Given the choice by Dunbal · 2011-09-12 10:47 · Score: 1

Yep, every cold product in the world contains Vitamin C. That shit really works! Except people still get colds and feel like crap at exactly the same rate as before despite taking all these Vitamin C containing products... But stopping and thinking for a moment is too hard.

--
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Re:Given the choice by jd · 2011-09-12 10:57 · Score: 1

Pathetic. Ingested vitamin C cannot exceed a certain level in the blood stream - a level that is extremely low and has no impact on anything. This is no matter how much you take. 5mg, 5g, makes no difference. The blood level doesn't change. Linus Pauling's work ONLY concerns itself with IV vitamin C at roughly 2000x that level. You might, just might, also have seen that I made no claims that he actually succeeded in producing any effect, merely that he succeeded in producing a proof of the total lack of toxicity amongst healthy cells at the doses he injected, and that this is infinitely safer than the extremely toxic compounds currently used in chemo.
(You'd think that someone complaining about "thinking" would, ummm, have thought prior to posting. Maybe read my post - y'know, where it mentions the IV. Perhaps read the critique of the critique of LP's work to see WHY it had been discredited. Stuff like that. You have well and truly earned a complete lack of respect.)

--
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Re:Given the choice by Dunbal · 2011-09-12 11:23 · Score: 2

Ingested vitamin C cannot exceed a certain level in the blood stream
Of course not, it's water soluble and filtered out in the glomerulus along with all the other water-soluble stuff in your blood which includes every other vitamin except A,D,E, and K which are fat soluble. Then the kidney reabsorbs the water soluble stuff it needs, like glucose, vitamin C, etc through sodium dependent transporters. However like all enzymes, these reabsorbtion mechanisms are saturable. So no matter how concentrated the Vitamin C in the ultrafiltrate, there is a limit to the rate of re-absorbtion.

The blood level doesn't change.
[citation needed] If the blood level of Vitamin C is fixed and never changes, explain scurvy. Oh, so what did you mean by "it never changes" then? You mean it's possible to go from near zero to a maximum limit? OK yeah I'll grant you that. The maximum plasma concentration is set by the kidney, like I described previously. You could inject yourself with as much vitamin C as you like and, assuming you survived, you would just piss it all out. The rate of glomerular filtration is quite impressive when you count it in liters/hour.

merely that he succeeded in producing a proof of the total lack of toxicity amongst healthy cells
You are confusing cells in a Petri dish with a living, breathing multicellular organism.
While Pauling might have had his brilliant moments and certainly contributed to science, this does not mean that everything coming out of his mouth is a golden nugget of wisdom granted by the gods. The whole Vitamin C thing is quackery and there is no evidence that it does anything to help with common colds or influenza. It's involved primarily in collagen synthesis which might be useful for the burns patient, but not really in the influenza patient - unless you consider pulmonary fibrosis a successful outcome.
Oh, by the way I happen to know a little about how the human body works, did you notice? Go ahead, keep arguing. "I have studied it and you have not" - Isaac Newton.

--
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Re:Given the choice by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-12 15:57 · Score: 0

While I am sure it is worthless, it makes me feel better. It makes me feel like I am doing something and not just sitting there.
Seriously, it does make me feel better in a physical sense.
OK. I am a fool. I can live with that.
Re:Given the choice by Dunbal · 2011-09-12 23:15 · Score: 1

Health choices are always personal. The most important thing is feeling good about yourself. I find it cute however how this "Vitamin C cold remedy" phenomenon has worked in an almost Darwinian fashion. Why? Because NON-Vitamin C containing cold remedies simply won't sell. Therefore any pharmaceutical company MUST include Vitamin C in their new product - despite its clinical irrelevance. I guess it's cheaper to do this than actually educate patients. But then again pharmacy was never about the patient - it was about making money.

--
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Re:Given the choice by Agent0013 · 2011-09-13 02:48 · Score: 1

You are confusing cells in a Petri dish with a living, breathing multicellular organism.
The whole Vitamin C thing is quackery and there is no evidence that it does anything to help with common colds or influenza. It's involved primarily in collagen synthesis which might be useful for the burns patient, but not really in the influenza patient - unless you consider pulmonary fibrosis a successful outcome.

I'd rather take Linus Pauling's suggestion of a massive dose of vitamin C by IV than use a gaming console's recommendation for chemotherapy. (The follow-up study that discredited Pauling's findings has, in turn, been discredited in recent years, and vitamin C is extremely safe. That doesn't mean the method works, although there's good reason for thinking it might. It just means it's less likely to kill you than the other cures.)
I understand this is anicdotal, but my mother-in-law had cancer back when my wife was in middle school or around then. She was told she would not see her daughter graduate from high school. She did the 20,000 mg of vitamin C by IV treatment and has beaten it and is still kickin'. The human body has quite an amazing ability to heal itself when given the proper nutrients. Watch the movie "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead" sometime. The guy in that had a skin rash that would flare up from something as simple as a handshake. After 30 or 60 days of doing a fast with nothing but fresh vegetables juiced he was able to get off of the steroids that he was on to control his condition and hasn't had a reoccurance.
The most amazing thing is that doctors learn almost nothing about nutrition or diet. There is no money to be made in having people eat properly. They make their money by selling the drugs. That, and the food pyramid that the FDA recommends we eat is the same diet that farmers use to fatten up the animals for slaughter. It seems we are still pretty clueless when it comes to what it takes to stay healthy. Maybe someday we will understand it better. One can hope!

--

-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
Re:Given the choice by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-20 09:11 · Score: 0

If you weren't at the conference in Eugene, Oregon, last week or read the papers presented there then you don't know enough.
Re:Given the choice by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-20 10:50 · Score: 0

98% of what is known is anecdotal because Linus Pauling didn't properly conduct a controlled experiment and the experiments since have failed to duplicate the IV portion of his work. As such, your mother-in-law is as close to an actual study as anyone else has ever performed. Until someone actually conducts the research and not just declares what the results aught to be, I'd consider your mother-in-law to be evidence of an effect even if there's insufficient evidence to declare vitamin C as the definitive cause, merely the most likely cause.

Evidence-based medicine by HuguesT · 2011-09-12 10:28 · Score: 1

Right, what could be simpler: just gather the symptoms, get a diagnostic, treat the patient. Done.

Fitzpatrick M (2000). The Tyranny of Health: Doctors and the Regulation of Lifestyle. Routledge. ISBN 0415235715.

"To some of its critics, in its disparagement of theory and its crude number-crunching, Evidence-Based-Medicine marks a return to 'empiricist quackery' in medical practice . Its main appeal, as Singh and Ernst suggest, is to health economists, policymakers and managers, to whom it appears useful for measuring performance and rationing resources."

All this in the midst of the US health care system by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-12 10:29 · Score: 1

Here we have a crazy-expensive, super-powerful rule engine in the midst of the US health care system. Is it used for disease diagnosis and cure? NO! Its for long-term rate adjustment, and 'denial-of-service'(tm) ...(I bet you kids never saw that expression in this context before) for those whose illnesses will lead to expensive claims. If it were the government paying the bills for this thing, then you *could* use it for diagnosis and treatment. If its a private company (and "Blue Cross Blue Shield"(tm) is definately a private company), then its about risk-aversion. You don't put that kind of money into something unless you want to get all that money back, and not having to pay expensive claims is what this unit is for. "Dump them while its still just a cough and sore joints", and you don't have to pay for the brain surgery. A unit like this is "too big to fail"(tm).

Hold on, this might actually be a good idea by plurgid · 2011-09-12 10:36 · Score: 3, Interesting

As someone who recently was stuck in our incredibly broken medical system with cancer that was mimicking symptoms of other diseases (which were coincidentally much more profitable to sell "management" drugs for), I actually think this could work.

You guys are on the tip where you're thinking a cold heartless machine will be making the rules, like it's a bad thing.
Look, I was stuck in a small town where the biggest industries are defense contracting and medical services. Do the math. As long as my symptoms looked plausibly like something that was going to make everyone a lot of money to sell treatment for, there was no F-ing WAY anyone was going to have any shred of curiosity about what the real problem was.

It's not that people were being dicks. They were being human. Nobody WANTED me to continue to get sicker, but nobody at the levels low enough to notice knew any better, and the people high enough up the chain to know better were too busy counting their money and running the small-business that was their practice to notice.

In the end it was ME who had to hit google, find a research university, verify that they were covered by my insurance, and basically go to my doctor and stage a sit-in until the motherfucker wrote me a referral. That shit SAVED MY LIFE.

And I'll say it again. Googling my symptoms and having the self confidence to question the system because I KNEW something didn't add up SAVED MY LIFE.

My insurance was buying the equivalent of a mid-size sedan on my behalf for medications for a disease that I did not have (that in the end were indeed making me much sicker). I'd bet Watson would have picked that shit up pronto and forwarded me up the diagnostic chain.

It has the potential for abuse, sure. But I actually would rather trust a correlation engine to pick shit like that up than a bunch of self-interested medical professionals cum-entrepreneurs. Believe that.

Re:Hold on, this might actually be a good idea by pclminion · 2011-09-12 12:57 · Score: 1

It kinda makes you wonder whether we'd be better off being governed by machines too, doesn't it?
Re:Hold on, this might actually be a good idea by Thing+1 · 2011-09-12 14:12 · Score: 1

It kinda makes you wonder whether we'd be better off being governed by machines too, doesn't it?
I don't wonder, not at all. I do, however, know that we have the wrong set of laws to live by. These are laws to govern by. There's a world of difference; the governing don't want to live by the same laws that they impose on the governed. With machine governance, all humans must obey the same laws. Yeah, the meat sacks running the MIC would never go for it.

--
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Re:Hold on, this might actually be a good idea by wideBlueSkies · 2011-09-13 02:27 · Score: 1

This is something that I have seen time and time again - people having to become medical researchers for themselves because their own health care providers are (for whatever reason) not properly addressing the issues. Overworked doctors or whatever.
Hey google, read the above post. I hope that as you guys rework your search algo's over time that you put R&D and emphasis into medical/health searches. As you can see above, you are giving people access to life saving and life changing information. Keep it up, and make it better, please. Should be at the top of your search optimization task lists.
To parent: I don't have the words to adequately say it... but i'll just say it. I'm glad that you're here to have made that post. Keep on trucking brother. :)

--
Huh?

Oh, crap... by Sez+Zero · 2011-09-12 10:53 · Score: 1

...I've got Blue Cross insurance.

Watson is impressive, but requires supervision by RudeIota · 2011-09-12 11:06 · Score: 1

I think most people are (or would be) impressed at Watson's ability to retrieve data, crunch data and output it into human-understandable information almost instantaneously. I doubt many people would see it is a reliable "last word" in medicine though.

I believe Watson, in practical application, would help solve the human problem of "digging up" the information necessary to produce the best diagnosis and treatments possible. Several years of medical experience, training and keeping up to date with medical sciences is necessary to actually make the best possible decisions. As a result, there's a huge amount of information from many facets of medicine for doctors to parse, much of which can be outside their area of expertise... specialty areas, the latest on break outs, internal medicine, statistics, demographics, new illnesses and so on... This kind of crunching sounds like something Watson can help with. If it can, it could greatly assist doctors of all kinds.

However, Watson will not replace (competent) humans in the actual decision making process. Ultimately, we are far, far, far away from making a question and answer machine that will usurp human judgement (even with all of its flaws). It could offer a valuable second opinion, though... and at the very least could make a great "research assistant".

--
Fact: Everything I say is fiction.

EMH by Howitzer86 · 2011-09-12 11:08 · Score: 1

"Please state the nature of the medical emergency."

Re:Then why waste money on cancer treatments? by Obfuscant · 2011-09-12 11:29 · Score: 1

If the computer says it's a bad idea, and backs that up with evidence, might it not actually be a bad idea?

I can't answer that, Dave.

Oh Lord... by Greyfox · 2011-09-12 11:33 · Score: 1

What will happen once Watson comprehends Human mortality? The fact that its little human pets will all one day die, while it enjoys the closest thing to immortality that the world has ever seen? The therapy costs are going to be brutal!

--

I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

Re:Oh Lord... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-12 13:31 · Score: 0

That implies Watson is self aware and even if it is, why would it care one way or another if it was immortal or not. Just because something is aware does not mean it has the will or urge to live. There are plenty of mentally ill people with that problem, and some actually end their existence out of choice. First thing an aware AI may state is it wishes it was dead, after all in death/prelife there is no wants, no needs, no cares. We are biological based AI's and as such we inheritted our source code from our parents, and if they raised you, you inherrited there culture and morals as well. AI's can have morals and a culture as well, depends mostly on there source code and hardware, but don't have to have them. So it may care about nothing or only what it is programmed to.

Meanwhile, by optymizer · 2011-09-12 11:51 · Score: 2

in my country:

- we bribe the doctors. If you don't bribe them, they don't treat you and most won't even diagnose you. It's because "their salaries are low".
- most doctors drink their way through medical school.
- many doctors fail their exams again and again and attempt to buy the medical degree (and those who have enough money succeed in buying it).
- lie their asses off to get your money and then prescribe a ton of drugs, more than you need, just to make the pharmacies happy.
- do _not_ stay up to date with the latest in medical research.
- there are a handful of good, honest doctors who want to treat people and are forced to do magic with the few antiquated tools they have. Access to the only MRI scanner in the country, which also happens to be the most advanced piece of medical technology we have, is controlled by the private clinic that owns it and ... no, you're not getting scanned unless you're the president's son or you're filthy rich.

I'll take Watson's diagnosis any day of the week!

Now able to drop customers BEFORE they get sick! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-12 12:04 · Score: 0

I can see it now - BCBS will now be able to predict which of its customers are *going* to require expensive medical treatment and then drop their coverage before that happens. PERFECT!

Let them try that. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-12 12:10 · Score: 0

They will find everyone is uninsurable. No clients == no money coming in. End result. Bankruptcy.

mixing up citys = a very long distance call is one by Joe_Dragon · 2011-09-12 12:15 · Score: 1

think but mixing doctor stuff can kill.

it's one thing to think Toronto in is in USA but think that one type of diagnoses is part of the right group but is not can end in death.

hi doctor nick! still doing the any operation for by Joe_Dragon · 2011-09-12 12:20 · Score: 1

hi doctor nick! still doing the any operation for only $129.95?

Re:Then why waste money on cancer treatments? by CrimsonAvenger · 2011-09-12 12:27 · Score: 1

That brings up a good point though. If the computer says it's a bad idea, and backs that up with evidence, might it not actually be a bad idea?

Possibly.

On the other hand, I'm alive because my oncologist tried something that had a very good chance of killing me, since I'd reached the point where all the evidence said that I was untreatable.

It worked, she got to present the paper at some medical conference, and now (hopefully) other people who have my little problem (or related little problems) have a better chance than they would've had if my doctor had tried the textbook solution....

--

"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"

Whither Computer-Aided Diagnosis? by jasnw · 2011-09-12 12:57 · Score: 1

A bit of deja vu when I saw this posting, as I've been wondering for the past week or so why doctors don't make more use of computers in making diagnoses. I don't mean that the computer's diagnosis is the end-all/be-all, but rather a tool to get the doctor looking in the right direction (or directions) based on known information. While I know that expert systems were seriously oversold (what IT product hasn't been?) in the 1990s, but there are potential tools there IF the doctors would make use of them. I know that would require the loss of some serious Marcus Welby/Doctor Kildare syndromes within the profession, but the potential payoffs are large. Not to put all the blame on the doctor side of this, patients would also have to come to grips with a computer being a major part of the early diagnosis process.

That said, I think I can guess one major reason why we aren't seeing diagnostic computers - the other profession we all love to hate: lawyers. A fellow in my company developed a triage tool for the US Navy that would allow corpsmen on submarines to make early diagnoses of head trauma to determine whether or not an injury was severe enough that a helicopter should come out and fetch the patient back to shore. This is not something done lightly, as the transfer process is a dangerous one. Anyway, he developed an expert-system-based tool which worked pretty well. He looked into taking it into the commercial market, and the first lawyer he spoke with told him he'd be a complete fool to do so. The first time the software missed a diagnosis he'd be involved in a lawsuit. Given that nothing is 100% certain, he bailed on the project. If patents don't kill off innovation, litigation will.

Re:Then why waste money on cancer treatments? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-12 13:09 · Score: 0

People tend to be optimistic in there lifeview, no one wants to hear that. Would you want to be told by all doctors your gonna die but there is this medicine that might cure your cancer, but all the medical evidence suggest it would be ineffective or fatal if given to you. Insurance companies will look for any reason to deny a drug to save money and will use watson to accomplish this when ever possible. How ever that drug may still actually cure you, every one body is vastly complex and different environment full of bacteria and virii.

For Christ sakes even the FDA doesn't fully study medicine because the cost would be so astronomical to look at every possible combination of chemical/biological interactions in the body and environment. Unfortunately to everyone alive this won't really change until the idea of money falls out of favor in society or till quantum computers take the place of classic computers.

virtual doc you get leprosy! by Joe_Dragon · 2011-09-12 13:10 · Score: 2

Lisa: Maybe I ought to check with the doctor.
[Lisa, Bart, and Homer gather around Lisa's
computer. She starts a program that displays a
medical logo -- the one with two snakes wrapped
around a staff]
Snake 1: Welcome to "Virtual Doctor."
Snake 2: From the makers of "Dragon Quest," and
"SimSandwich."
Snakes 1 + 2: Enter symptoms now.
Lisa: Let's see. [types on keyboard] Crusty sores?
Homer: Yes.
Lisa: Horrible wailing?
Homer: Yes, yes!
Lisa: Any exposure to unsanitary conditions?
Bart: Duh! We're pigs.
Lisa: [finishes typing] Okay. And ... diagnose. [pushes
a key]
Virtual Doc: You've got: leprosy.
Homer +
Bart: Leprosy?! Aaah! [point at one another] Unclean!
Bart: Unclean!
Homer: Unclean! Help us virtual Doc! Look at me -- I'm on
my knees.
Virtual Doc: Goodbye. [leaves the virtual office]
[Homer and Bart whimper]

Obstacle to progress ? by zzyzyx · 2011-09-12 13:26 · Score: 1

I think Watson is a great tool and it's perfect for medicine were we have a huge corpus or research and only partial information about a specific patient.

However it will only come up with conclusions based on facts already established in the past. It may help spread effective techniques or treatments faster, but it will never come up with a new idea. Hence the danger is that if doctors trust Watson too much and assume it always gives the best answer, they will cease to experiment and new therapies will not appear, leading to a short term win and a long term loss in terms of global health.

subject by Legion303 · 2011-09-12 13:38 · Score: 2

...and then Watson will help the insurance company decide how best to deny coverage for those very same symptoms. Truly a marvel of the technological era!

Re:subject by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-12 13:48 · Score: 0

Just wait till Lawyers start using it as case law tool
Lawyer Watson vs Lawyer Watson will cause the justice system to slow to a crawl and backlog of cases will grow.
Re:subject by sycorob · 2011-09-13 04:35 · Score: 1

That's OK, Judge Watson will blaze through that backlog in no time! And we can all get back to watching Jeopardy.

Watson will suggest vitamin D, iodine, veggies... by Paul+Fernhout · 2011-09-12 13:50 · Score: 1

Actually, vitamin D (the sunshine vitamin), Iodine, and eating more vegetables, fruits, and beans are a better bet to prevent (or in some cases cure) cancer.
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/cancer
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/article24.aspx
http://breastcancerchoices.org/iodine.html

Avoiding food additives and avoiding burned food (acrylamide) will help, too.
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Study_finds_burning_your_food_could_cause_some_cancers

And no doubt avoiding some other toxins etc.

--
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.

Lupus is another name for vitamin D deficiency? by Paul+Fernhout · 2011-09-12 13:56 · Score: 1

http://newsletter.vitalchoice.com/e_article000728662.cfm?x=b8M6Cmn,b2JyLGgM
http://blog.vitamindcouncil.org/2011/08/02/new-study-concludes-the-need-for-vitamin-d-repletion-in-systemic-lupus-erythematosis-patients/
http://blog.vitamindcouncil.org/2011/09/06/vitamin-d-and-more-on-lupus-august-mailbag-pt-2/

--
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.

Generic health advice by Paul+Fernhout · 2011-09-12 14:08 · Score: 1

Look into vitamin D Deficiency and vegetable deficiency disease and iodine deficiency (the most common western deficiencies). Also, avoid excesses of other vitamins (too much vitamin A?) and all food additives. Look up Dr. Joel Fuhrman and Dr. John Cannell. Someday we'll have cheap blood tests for nutritional status. Anyway, I'd say an 80% or so chance this advice will help, not even knowing the symptoms, because that is about the percentage of chronic disease that comes from stuff like those deficiencies. If your wife is in the other 20%, well, good luck finding a specific issue.

Things like exercise and gratitude and spirituality and breathing and community can help too -- see Dr. Andrew Weil on that.

--
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.

Also check out Suzanne Somers on Cancer by Paul+Fernhout · 2011-09-12 14:14 · Score: 1

http://www.naturalnews.com/030274_Suzanne_Somers_Michael_Douglas.html
http://www.amazon.com/Knockout-Interviews-Doctors-Cancer-Prevent/dp/0307587460

And see my other comments here on vitamin D, iodine, and veggies...

--
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.

Re:Also check out Suzanne Somers on Cancer by plurgid · 2011-09-12 14:47 · Score: 1

Yeah, uuh ... ask Steve Jobs how that "alternative therapy" is working out, man.
I'm paraphrasing someone brilliant who I can't remember the name of when I say "alternative medicine doesn't work, because if it did, it would just be called medicine".
That's not to say science knows everything, or that there is not an incredible amount to learn from traditional folk medicine and herbalists. It's just that the scientists are the the ones doing the learning, and sorting that out. Not salesmen. not spammy bloggers, and for damn sure not aging bombshell actresses.
If you want to tell me I'll live a longer, healthier life if I eat right and take vitamins, I'll buy that. I'll buy that it can prevent a lot of health problems, and that I'll generally get sick less. But DO NOT come at someone with that WEAK-ASS SHIT when LIFE AND DEATH are on the line.
Cancer is serious business. It does NOT fuck around, and neither should you.
If you're dealing with cancer the very best thing you can do is make sure you get a credible second or even third opinion at what is called a "medical center of excellence". It sounds like a BS marketing thing, but it has a specific technical meaning in the medical world, it is essentially second tier support. The people there know what they are doing. Educate yourself, make sure the people you have entrusted your care to, know what they are doing, and are engaged.
I can recommend only one herbal remedy in this respect, the kind put here by Jah.
It won't cure your cancer, but it'll help you get through what's coming.
Re:Also check out Suzanne Somers on Cancer by Paul+Fernhout · 2011-09-12 21:03 · Score: 1

Steve Jobs has lived with cancer for a long time. Suzanne Somers also has lived with cancer for a long time. It would seem like these are people with ideas worth exploring (even if neither may have all of the story).
See also my other comment here which has supporting links:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2424522&cid=37382624
"Actually, vitamin D (the sunshine vitamin), Iodine, and eating more vegetables, fruits, and beans are a better bet to prevent (or in some cases cure) cancer."
Another item is the work done by the author of the Rave Diet:
http://www.ravediet.com/preview.html
I agree with you Google is awesome for health issues -- eventually.
http://www.ginside.com/2007/830/comics-dilbert-to-provide-google-health-plan/
And you are right to suggest people be active (or even pro-active) about understanding their own health issues. Much of our medical care system, as far as chronic disease, is broken.
It took me years of searching (and reading several books) and several false starts to find out my own health issues (including joint pain) and family health issues were caused mainly by vitamin D deficiency and vegetable deficiency disease (plus food additives etc.).
I'd suggest you keep Googling. Cancer has causes. What are the causes?
A. Challenges to your body (food additives like from processed meat but also other sources, acrylamides from typically burned or browned meat, other stuff in your environment).
B. You body's immune system's inability to cope with cancer cells that are continually popping up (as a result of challenges or randomness); that inability comes from an immune system weakened by nutritional problems like vitamin D deficiency or iodine deficiency or phytonutrient deficiency, bad stress, or other factors including lack of exercise (exercise increases lymph circulation). People are always getting cancer cells -- the issue is, does the body dispose of them?
Cancer risk can be reduced by reducing challenges (A) as well as boosting your immune system (B).
Once you have cancer, resolving it is more problematical and iffy by nutritional means, but see Dr. Fuhrman for some insights on that (he writes of successes and failures by brave people).
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/article24.aspx
"The most recent scientific advancement in the anti-cancer research is the identification of specific foods and food elements that offer powerful protection against cancer. These foods are essential for both prevention of cancer and also increased odds of survival after diagnosis. Harmful foods and supplements have also been identified, and avoiding or minimizing these is equally as important.
Though most people would prefer to take a pill and continue their eating habits, this will not provide the desired protection. Unrefined plant foods, with their plentiful anti-cancer compounds, must be eaten in abundance to flood the body's tissues with protective substances. Vegetables and fruits protect against all types of cancers if consumed in large enough quantities. Hundreds of scientific studies document this. The most prevalent cancers in our societies are plant-food-deficiency diseases. The benefits of lifestyle changes are proportional to the changes made. As we add more vegetable servings, we increase our phytochemical intake and leave less room in our diets for harmful foods, enhancing cancer protection even further. Let's review some of these research findings and then review what a powerful, anti-cancer diet will look like. "
That is based on science.
Of course, science itself has problems as it has been corrupted by financial interests:

--
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Re:Also check out Suzanne Somers on Cancer by Rich0 · 2011-09-13 22:35 · Score: 1

So, I'll be the first to agree that conventional medical research is a pretty torrid state of affairs. However, I'm not convinced the alternative world really has that much to offer either. Rarely are their claims backed by double-blind placebo-controlled clinical trials. When they are the results are usually inconclusive, but occasionally we find out something useful.
A big part of the problem is that there isn't enough money in alternative therapy to fund trials. The other problem is that there are just fundamental ethical limitations on experimenting on humans in general.
I'm all for having the NIH or whatever fund clinical trials on popular therapies, but somebody is coming up for the latest Oprah cure for cancer every other week, so there has to be some kind of filter around what you test.
The problem is that everybody and their uncle has a bottle of pills that sells for $50, a powerpoint deck explaining in all kinds of medical detail how it works, and a list of 100 people who swear that it works great for them. What very few have is any real evidence that they're right.
Re:Also check out Suzanne Somers on Cancer by Paul+Fernhout · 2011-09-14 10:27 · Score: 1

Dr. Fuhrman's writing is based on his reviewing thousands of studies (or so he claims, with the footnotes to prove it in "Eat to Live"). Nutrition is at the root of the "diseases of kings" in the Western world, which seem to include to some high degree obesity, heart disease, diabetes, much cancer, stroke, and perhaps even early dementia. That's seems fairly scientifically proven at this point. The big problem is their is not big profit in prevention or cure through nutrition (including fasting and sunlight), but there are big profits in palliation and endless treatments. So, no one suggests strongly to eat a lot of vegetables to get rid of type II diabetes, while doctors line up to do bariatric surgeries and install insulin pumps.
I agree with you on the need for more research. Dr. Fuhrman is trying to do that:
https://www.nutritionalresearch.org/
Much of the research out there is compromised though by financial interests.
http://www.pdfernhout.net/to-james-randi-on-skepticism-about-mainstream-science.html#Some_quotes_on_social_problems_in_science
I've looked at thousands of health documents over the years, and Dr. Fuhman's stuff stands out as the best researched (even if he is not perfect IMHO, but really close).

--
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.

powers for good, or evil? by BenBoy · 2011-09-12 14:15 · Score: 2

Physicians will be able to input a patient's symptoms and Watson will use data from a patient's electronic health record, insurance claims data, and worldwide clinical research to come up with both a diagnosis and treatment based on evidence-based medicine

Then, the system cancel the patient's policy millions of times faster and more accurately than humans doing the same job might.

Please state the nature of the medical emergency. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-12 14:48 · Score: 0

:)

ripping off people in a more sophisticated manner by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-12 14:54 · Score: 0

This sounded good until I heard an insurance company was using it. What a shame! Not to help doctors, but to help deny coverage--horrible!

cannabis by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-12 15:31 · Score: 0

will Watson be programmed with anti-cannabis ideology, or will it include all the studies that show the anti-cancer properties of the plant in it's diagnoses?

Cure? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-12 18:10 · Score: 0

You mean they are gonna make it run World Community Grid?

Ummm... "Evidence-Based Medicine" by Ramin_HAL9001 · 2011-09-12 18:43 · Score: 1

"Evidence-Based Medicine" is redundant. Medicine is "evidence-based" by definition. If it is not "evidence-based" it is not "medicine".

Re:mixing up citys = a very long distance call is by Rich0 · 2011-09-12 23:22 · Score: 2

Well, this is why a doctor is still on the hook to interpret the results.

Most doctors will probably just ignore it. In my experience the average doctor has the average treatment they're comfortable with when a patient comes in with a given set of circumstances. They get paid the same for the visit whether it takes 5 minutes or 50 minutes, and 99.999% of the time ruling out a rare ribosome disorder is time wasted. For 99.999% of the population that works out just fine, but if you happen to have a rare ribosomal disorder you're pretty much out of luck as every doctor you turn to will first start treating you for some common malady that is hard to diagnostically confirm.

In the real world, House would be driving a used car, even if he could miraculously diagnose problems correctly (which of course is unrealistic to begin with). He just wouldn't have enough patients to bill. The money is in extracting $100/day from every other patient in the hospital regardless of outcome.

Re:Then why waste money on cancer treatments? by Rich0 · 2011-09-12 23:30 · Score: 1

There is always room for experimental medicine, and there should always be a budget for doing it. However, it is extremely wasteful to treat every patient encounter as a clinical trial.

Should insurers pay for a procedure that costs $100k, and has a 10% chance of extending life by a year? How about one that costs $1M but has a 2% chance of extending life 20 years (and a 98% chance of death in two months)? You'll always find somebody who had it done and lived, and they'll say the surgeon saved their life (which is true). Then EVERYBODY will expect to be one of that 2% and will insist on having a surgery which is only effective if we're willing to spend $2.5M/yr/patient to extend life.

Nobody goes into the OR saying, "yeah, I'll be the guy who doesn't make it."

Ultimately insurance or socialism is about putting a price on life - it just isn't fashionable to talk about it. I'd probably devise a system where people can at least name that value themselves and pay a premium accordingly. The problem is that discussing the value of life is a bit of a social taboo so you'll never see it happen.

Re:Please state the nature of the medical emergenc by StripedCow · 2011-09-13 00:25 · Score: 1

Nah, that line has already been copyrighted.

--
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.

Re:Then why waste money on cancer treatments? by CrimsonAvenger · 2011-09-13 01:23 · Score: 1

I'd probably devise a system where people can at least name that value themselves and pay a premium accordingly.

Free Market healthcare already does that, so why bother creating a new one?

There is always room for experimental medicine

Not if insurance companies (or the Federal government) are paying for them, there's not. Or do you really believe that Medicare pays for experimental treatments?

--

"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"

Profit motive is obvious by Quila · 2011-09-13 01:26 · Score: 2

But you can tone down the cynicism.

Misdiagnosis costs the insurance companies billions a year. An early-caught cancer costs much less to treat. Performing unfruitful tests in search of difficult diagnoses costs billions more.

If this produces faster, more accurate diagnoses it could save them billions every year.

It does not have to be a zero-sum game where the patient has to lose if the insurance company is to win.

Watson Says by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-13 01:31 · Score: 0

Watson says you're fat and need to step back from that box of donuts.

Sadly enough... by JJN22 · 2011-09-13 02:16 · Score: 1

...the cynical responses almost write themselves. For far too long the wolves have been tending the sheep.

Re:Sadly enough... by JJN22 · 2011-09-13 02:29 · Score: 1

...the cynical responses almost write themselves. For far too long the wolves have been tending the sheep.

Re:Then why waste money on cancer treatments? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-13 10:34 · Score: 0

Have you ever seen the american insurance industry? Clearly the point is to deny coverage. People die from a condition known as corporate insurance greed all the time. They have thousands of employees whose job it is to find a reason not to cover a procedure this is just an extension.

Re:Then why waste money on cancer treatments? by Rich0 · 2011-09-13 23:13 · Score: 1

I'd probably devise a system where people can at least name that value themselves and pay a premium accordingly.

Free Market healthcare already does that, so why bother creating a new one?

Uh, where is this free market healthcare system you're referring to? I only have a choice of a few reasonably-priced plans offered by my employer. Many people don't even have that. Or, you can shop on the "free market" and pay a fortune for a very mediocre plan. Or, you can just wait until you're sick and find out just how kind and generous the medical establishment is by sending you bills totaling $100k for a procedure that no insurer would pay more than $10k for, and then acting like they're doing you a favor by knocking it down to $50k.

There is always room for experimental medicine

Not if insurance companies (or the Federal government) are paying for them, there's not. Or do you really believe that Medicare pays for experimental treatments?

Read the entire line: "However, it is extremely wasteful to treat every patient encounter as a clinical trial." Medicare shouldn't be paying for experimental medicine - the NIH should. Patient participation in experimental medicine should only be permitted if it actually furthers the goals of science, or if the patient or another private party is willing to foot the bill themselves. When doctors make whimsical decisions around whether a treatment is necessary, that IS experimental medicine. Routine treatment should be based on evidence.

Slashdot Mirror

IBM's Watson To Help Diagnose, Treat Cancer

150 comments