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Stem Cell Firm May Have Administered Unproven Treatments
ananyo writes "With Texas pouring millions of dollars into developing adult stem-cell treatments, doctors there are already injecting paying customers with unproven preparations, supplied by an ambitious new company. Celltex Therapeutics 'multiplies and banks' stem cells derived from people's abdominal fat and its facility in Sugar Land opened in December 2011 and houses the largest stem-cell bank in the United States. But Nature has uncovered evidence that the company is involved in the clinical use of the cells on US soil, which the FDA has viewed as illegal in other cases."
The company is injecting patients with their own stem cells after massive multiplication of “minimally modified” stem cells.
This seems to be something of a loop hole in current regulation.
Some advocates of the treatments argue, however, that preparations based on a patient's own cells should not be classed as drugs, and should not therefore fall under the FDA's jurisdiction.
...
The legal standing of stem-cell treatments is currently being debated in a court case brought by Regenerative Sciences of Broomfield, Colorado, which was ordered by the FDA in 2010 to stop administering mesenchymal stem cells to patients5. One of the key issues being debated is whether the cells are “minimally manipulated” before being reinjected into the patient. Treatment with the patient's own, unprocessed tissue does not always require FDA approval.
I'm betting this gets reigned in somewhat, if not by the FDA, then by Texas, as the state has already made it clear it wants some oversight.
This whole thing sounds like several bad made for TV movies I've seen.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
The only question should be: "Were the patients fully informed?" If I have a terminal or otherwise untreatable condition, I want to be able to decide for myself whether or not an unproven treatment is worth the risk.
Some people need "protection" or "hand-holding"? No problem. Protect them. But I also want the right to opt out of the government's protection.
Because the average patient doesn't have the background to understand what they're getting themselves into. Without laws to the contrary snake oil salesman can claim whatever they want about a treatment or medication. Do you really want to live in the 19th century?
Hell, I've seen "stem cell treatment" clinics advertising all kinds of BS therapies for years. Last I heard the only approved treatment was for repairing damage done from chemotherapy - and that has been going on for decades.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Because the average patient doesn't have the background to understand what they're getting themselves into. Without laws to the contrary snake oil salesman can claim whatever they want about a treatment or medication. Do you really want to live in the 19th century?
You're right, laws to protect citizens from "snake oil salesmen" were indeed important in the 19th century since no one could google "snake oil" and realize that this wasn't going to cure their cancer. Now you can. Welcome to the 21st century.
Does this rag smell like chloroform to you?
You say that as if anyone not working in the stem cell field would understand...
I work in the field, and pretty much nobody is talking about current safe therapies... this is because of the lack of substantially finalized trials. Bone marrow xplants are, in essence, an adult stemcell therapy, but even then not bone marrow precursors (haematopoetic stemcells) derived from iPSC (induced pluripotent stemcells made from fibroblasts, adipose, etc).
Because the average patient doesn't have the background to understand what they're getting themselves into. Without laws to the contrary snake oil salesman can claim whatever they want about a treatment or medication. Do you really want to live in the 19th century?
Did you actually read what you replied to?
"As long as the patient is made aware of the risks."
That precludes fraud, which eliminates snake oil salesman.
It doesn't matter what I want. It's what the patient in question wants. Who is the government to tell them what's proper, or decide where the risk/benefit ratio should fall? Let people assume full responsibility for their own decisions and actions. If they die due to poor choices, so much better for the gene pool.
One can (legally) go and buy a $10 vial of worthless homeopathic "medicine," and some people get relief from that. In what way might this be different, except in scale? Does is actually cause harm, or is it merely a distraction from accepted treatments?
IMO, and that of many others, government is about protecting people from each other, not from their own freely made choices.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
People who say things like that generally seem to assume two things: first, that full and accurate information will be available; and second, that they'll be able to interpret the information and make an informed decision -- after all, they're smart and knowledgeable and can think for themselves, not like all those other sheeple! They could, of course, educate themselves about the history of patent medicine (and food production) and why the FDA and similar organizations in other countries were created in the first place, but it's easier to grumble about "government gatekeepers" and decry regulation as a matter of principle.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Because the average patient doesn't have the background to understand what they're getting themselves into
I thin it is partly that, but probably a much greater part is pure politics. The conservatives and religious types hold much of the voter base, especially in the bible belt and heartlands of the US. A strong approach to "limit the evils of scientists" in political speeches goes a long way to garnishing some of those votes. This isn't new at all, with movement as early as 2006 during the Bush administration when the US was limiting this type of research, but the EU was pushing boldly ahead. However, more recently, they banned patents which came around due to stem cell research which is sort of good and sort of bad - it means that companies are less likely to invest as heavily into the research, but it means that all government funding will certainly be to the benefit of the population.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
You might be on gooogle for a long time before you 1) got a clear anwer and 2) learned enough to be sure what a clear answer looks like.
You play pedantic, but youre acting stupid.
Yes, because everyone has access, ability and understanding. I know I keep up with the latest in stem cell research as it relates to cancer....don't you?
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
Do you have cancer? Because I bet cancer patients keep up with it.
But do they have the education to understand what they are reading?
And yet we have drugs that people want to take. 25 years ago when AIDS was the topic of the day ACT UP and other groups were demanding that people get access to experimental drugs.
... what about a simple concept called freedom?
Yes there are snake-oil salesmen - but at the same time there are valuable drugs out there. A compromise needs to be reached where non-FDA approved drugs can be sold.
How is this compromise reached? It can be done - but there will have to public debate until we arrive at a concensus. Remove legal responsibility to adverse reactions and you will have con-men flooding the market. AND yet
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
OK, so forget the wider internet. Why doesn't the FDA maintain a website containing the approved and known-safe drugs, the experimental drugs, the known-dangerous drugs, etc. The doctor recommends the treatment, the patient goes to the FDA website (which the doctor is required to tell them about) and gets all the information, now the patient can make an informed decision.
You can make all the arguments you want about young children or patients with mental disabilities, but that doesn't justify depriving normal adults of a decision about their own medical treatment.
In order to form an opinion on the matter, it would be useful to know if the treatments have any effect.
You know... evidence based science?
Model-based science is all the rage nowadays, and that we can't allow anything to happen unless we have a clear understanding of why it should happen before we try.
The debate as to whether these people should be labelled snake-oil salesmen or experimentalists would seem to rest on this. Is this government intrusion into people's right to choose, or a regulatory agency stepping in to keep people safe?
We need to know the risks and potential benefits in addition to the opinions of an insular, jargonized profession.
It's not always about trusting the experts.
"I work in the field, and pretty much nobody is talking about current safe therapies."
If you work in that field, then you must admit that you see potential benefits. Are you claiming that this specific treatment is unsafe, or you simply don't know? Why should patients, making a decision of their own free will, be denied a potential treatment by the government? If you're claiming that your knowledge puts you in a better position to make a decision, who decides who decides, if not the person who is directly affected? By what province does the government get to make decisions which affect only the individual?
Based on the same criteria as is used by the FDA (widespread, mainstream medical acceptance), the once accepted therapy for ill humors was bloodletting. If someone at the time wanted an "alternative" treatment, such as moldy bread on their sores, they would have been ridiculed.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Who is expected to pick up the pieces if the treatment has undesirable side-effects?
Are people (in general) capable of understanding the risks? Would the same people who sign up to this also send money to Nigerian Prince's in exile?
Nope I dont, but I have sure been in enough research labs. But if you have colon cancer how long are you going to wait to 'educate' yourself? How long do your doctors want you too? What type and how aggressive. Care to be Steve jobs?
And no they don't. They fall for snake oil all the time. ALL THE TIME.
One of the saddest things I ever heard was about the AIDS precautions taken by haemophiliacs in the late 80's when AIDS was on the rise. People who knew *everything* about blood had the same rate of protected sex as the rest of the population. Nothing like seeing a CDC researcher report that.
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
Celltex Therapeutics's patented "Stem Cell Rejuvenation Nostrum and Relief Cream" cures the Colick, Goiter, Dropsy, Issues of Women, Fatigue, Consumption, Black Blood, Great Pox, and Chillblains. It can be boiled in water to create an Efficacious Drench for All Manner of Stomach Ailments. It is 100% Safe and Guaranteed by CellTex to Improve Disposition of Children.
When purchased with the optional Nasal Applicator Sponge, this cream can also be used to relieve Nasal Congestion and Dryness as well as treat all manner of Nasal Infection.
#DeleteChrome
Interesting. Would still be for the FDA regulating what requires a prescription and which ones don't? If I'm informed and I am able to make my own decision I don't think I should need a doctor either.
Uh, dude... I have family members that buy bottles of new age memory water that have been impressed with good memories and are supposed to help you along on your path to enlightenment. They've also bought polished black rocks that "retune the negative energy of cellphones into good energy that can heal any illness" which if cellphones aren't around they'll fall back on the energy of underground streams.
Actual snake oil was so much more straightforward.
People form groups. Bullshit is spread around. When someone hears the same bullshit from two places, they tend to go "oh my god, that must be true!".
Never underestimate the power of stupidity and ignorance. The general population of the world is nowhere near rational.
that doesnt mean they wont all go get one and help Goldman Sachs et al bring down the world economy, while all of the 'experts' who are highly educated, sophisitcated economists continue to say there is no housing bubble, mortgage backed bonds and securities are great, Bear Stearns is a good investment, etc etc etc blah blah blah.
for a more updated version, watch TV during mid day, count the number of for-profit colleges advertising, then go read 'Subprime goes to College' by Steve Eisman.
at some point, you have to have somebody come in and tell one group of people to stop victimizing another at a huge cost to society, and then claiming "not my problem, they should have known i was going to destroy their lives". we dont need any more bailouts.
Nope I dont, but I have sure been in enough research labs. But if you have colon cancer how long are you going to wait to 'educate' yourself? How long do your doctors want you too? What type and how aggressive. Care to be Steve jobs?
And no they don't. They fall for snake oil all the time. ALL THE TIME.
If you have some terminal illness that is killing you so fast that you can't even take two weeks to do your homework and think on it, it seems like the risk:reward for potential snake oil might be quite attractive even thinking rationally. If you're already going to die soon otherwise then what's the worst that can happen?
One of the saddest things I ever heard was about the AIDS precautions taken by haemophiliacs in the late 80's when AIDS was on the rise. People who knew *everything* about blood had the same rate of protected sex as the rest of the population. Nothing like seeing a CDC researcher report that.
I think sex is in a different class from medical treatment. People who have unprotected sex generally don't plan to do it, so it makes perfect sense that people with more information don't make any better decisions. In this case people are making foolish decisions because they don't think, not because they don't know.
... because desperate people will do desperate things.
Sure, things could be a lot better... but it's a big assumption that people will (a) make informed decisions and (b) not get totally taken advantage of.
The second one person out of a hundred has a positive outcome on some test drug, all known dangers are totally ignored and everyone wants it. The corp selling the drug starts to suspect there's a problem, but they are making a lot of money so they wait for more conclusive proof. Two years later, everyone's dead of kidney failure.
People are not rational. Even otherwise quite rational people given desperate choices will take wild gambles and will blindly trust anyone saying they can help.
More to the point (at least in australia) the cost of "fixing" someone is significant for the government and they also consider people to be an "investment" - as in "we spent heaps educating you to year 12, now you owe us".
The point being of course is that they dont want you doing anything that can either cost them money or kill their investment...
"it's a big assumption that people will (a) make informed decisions and (b) not get totally taken advantage of."
It's an even bigger assumption that the government can (a) make informed decisions on specific individual cases and (b) not be subject to biased, politically motivated influence.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Is this a US thing or something, because I thought that was permanently changed long ago. In Canada they ask information about recent sexual activity, but to the best of my knowledge it's all about quantity and risk, I don't think there are any questions regarding orientation.
The point is that they had all the information they needed, even from highly trained medical specialist, and *still* didn't make the right choice. And you want to be part of it that even drags the best and brightest out of it so "Duh Gubmint won't terl me, no sah"??? Really?
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
Prescriptions can be eliminated in that case. The pharmacy will just have you sign a waiver form.
There are millions of items on store shelves that can kill you. How come only prescription drugs need a permission slip from the government?
It doesn't deprive them of anything. The literature is there. Go make the drug. This isn't rocket science. What they are doing is protecting the populous from the unscrupulous drug companies. If a drug is unregulated you can take it all you want. just don't expect your insurance to cover it.
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
" I have family members that buy bottles of new age memory water "
I have family members who buy 3D TVs and iPhones, which are probably more expensive than that water. Are you saying they're stupid and ignorant, and shouldn't be allowed that choice?
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Because desperate people don't think rationally, and will throw away huge amounts of money on drugs that don't do shit sold by heartless scammers. That already happens, there's no need to make it more common.
Hardcore libertarians always have this view of themselves as gods-made-flesh, always rational, always informed, always able to make the best decision for themselves, and HOW DARE anyone tell them otherwise. It's all feel-good bunk. Normal adults should be deprived of these decisions because normal adults will get ripped off and end up hurting themselves and their loved ones. It's in everyone's best interests to have impartial experts examine the facts and say "No, this drug is just going to make you worse" without having the consumer get competing "information" from "HowTheGovernmentIsKeepingYouSick.com".
Texas is pouring millions into stem cell research? OK it is official, the world is coming to an end.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
people gamble with their health, people make stupid decisions. this includes you. this includes myself
but what doesn't happen is that the individual is the only one who pays for their bad gambles, we pay for it, society, in direct financial ways, and in more disperse ways
we're not going to change human nature, but if we become aware of snake oil salesmen, or ponzi schemes, we shut it down
not because we want to tell people what to do and deny them their god given freedom to shoot themselves in the foot, but because we don't want to pay for their fuck ups
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
False equivalence. The difference is that there wasn't much in the way of double blind tests establishing the benefits of bloodletting for ill humors. Now, had bloodletting actually been beneficial and so proved by double blind tests, it would have been pretty reasonable to encourage sticking with that treatment until applying moldy bread had been proved superior through similar double-blind testing.
In fact a common treatment for hemachromatosis is a modern version of blood-letting, and applying moldy bread to the body of hemachromatosis patients isn't going to do them much good. And if hemachromatosis doesn't qualify as a form of ill humor, I don't know what does.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
Really? That' s ORDERS of magnitude more manageable.
I'd MUCH rather have government's barely competent management of medical science tell me (and the people I care about) what's safe. It's a big enough target for people to actually monitor and watchdog to some degree. Is it going to make the correct, unbiased decision for every person? Of course not, probably far from it. That doesn't mean we should throw it out and let anyone with an idea and a slick web site inject something into Grandma. Care to try to manage THAT? What possible criteria would you have, if "let's test it and see what happens first" is too much government interference for you?
Caveat emptor?
I can't actually believe I'm having this argument. After all.. Why trust the government with guns? Let's break all this shit down and get rid of all the police, firefighters, teachers, etc. I'm sure we could do SO much better with neighbourhood militias, bucket brigades, and home schooling with that nice Intelligent Design lady down the street.
People who have unprotected sex generally don't plan to do it, so it makes perfect sense that people with more information don't make any better decisions.That wasn't true in the 1980s. Condoms weren't a de rigeur part of the plan until after years of AIDS education and activism. From the advent of antibiotics and hormonal birth control until a decade or so into the AIDS epidemic, contracting an STD wasn't considered a big deal among people who had casual sex.
How many high blood pressure patients understand the nuances of the rein-angiotensin system.
http://www.aaronrogier.net
Suppose you (or a loved one) as some sort of pernicious disease, either with no treatment or none of the approved treatments have been successful.
Ok, suppose I have cancer.
Someone close does a google search on the condition, and comes up with a site peddling some treatment that doesn't appear on the FDA website.
I googled "magic cancer treatment" and this is the first result.
What do you do now? Without access to the test data (if any exists) nor the education to evaluate it, how do you make any sensible decision under extremely emotional conditions?
I ignore it because it's not FDA approved.
Simply, wasn't that?
Apparently Texas may have advanced technologically, but not socially. They still sell snake oil and execute the innocent and the retarded.
Silence is a state of mime.
Nope I dont, but I have sure been in enough research labs. But if you have colon cancer how long are you going to wait to 'educate' yourself? How long do your doctors want you too? What type and how aggressive. Care to be Steve jobs?
And no they don't. They fall for snake oil all the time. ALL THE TIME.
If you have some terminal illness that is killing you so fast that you can't even take two weeks to do your homework and think on it, it seems like the risk:reward for potential snake oil might be quite attractive even thinking rationally. If you're already going to die soon otherwise then what's the worst that can happen?
The worst that can happen is you spend $50k on a treatment that doesn't buy you a single god-damned day of further life. Now, not only are you dead, but you get to go to your grave knowing that you've heaped an extra burden on your loved ones for nothing. But since at the time of making the decision you're still in the bargaining stage of grief, you don't think about that. The heartless scammers running these cons count on that.
But isn't that exactly what the FDA does - test it to see what happens? If not, then there's no argument, because no progress can ever be made.
Exactly, provided there is no fraud (deceit) involved. That is a proper role for goverment.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
They kind of do. There is this powerful tool known as the Orange book with all approved medications including generics listed with separate entries for each dosage. There is a lot of information out there. Even if you just count the free stuff. The thing is a good portion of it is only really accessible in a useful way to professionals, because the body is a complex system. You pharmacist, the guy who checks your prescriptions for dangers and counsels you on proper drug therapy has at least four years of professional education. Saying any given normal adult should have to accept all of the responsibility for themselves is opening the door for abuse.
Look at statins. There are dangers popping up now that didn't appear in a statistically significant way during the original trials that only had thousands of participants. Now, with post market surveillance more of them can be identified. On the flip side, there are benefits of statins being explored that weren't conceivable during per-approval trials.
http://www.aaronrogier.net
I have no problem finding the information I need from Yahoo Answers.
The point is, people with all the tools in the world to find information on what works and what doesn't aren't going to use it correctly.
Selling black rocks to make fools feel better around cell phones is frustrating but it isn't that big a problem. Selling black rocks as an alternative treatment for cancer, or memory water for diabetes... that's a problem worth regulating.
If you throw out the FDA, you're effectively throwing out testing. What corp would spend even 1% of what they do now to test drugs if they weren't absolutely forced to follow the process to the bitter end?
Civil liability is nowhere near a large enough deterrent. Can you imagine trying to prove your son died due to snake oil salesman #1's special mango juice, vs. some other natural causes?
Do whatever you want with U.S. laws. It won't make a difference. Ban it here and people will just drive to Mexico to buy the treatment, usually from other Americans over there. In fact, they already do. I'm not advocating that stem cell treatment should be legal in the U.S. Just saying that whether it is legal or not won't affect people's ability to buy it when they want to.
The infected blood supply also took a toll on people who needed blood for other reasons, including one of my favorite authors, Isaac Asimov.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
The literature is there. Go make the drug.
You do realize that it's illegal to manufacture drugs without FDA approval, right?
If a drug is unregulated you can take it all you want. just don't expect your insurance to cover it.
I'm not sure what you mean by "unregulated". All drugs in the US are regulated by the FDA. Even over-the-counter drugs. Making your own Aspirin is a federal crime.
Wow, you are right.
Here is a two year old make him aware of the risks of surgery for brain cancer. I mean we are only trepanning .
At what general age or competence level does this statement; "We are only Trepanning" become nonsensical and an issue?
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
That's the important fact: it took people a decade to start doing what everyone knew they should be doing.
Just as it took decades for the smoking rate to start dropping after everybody knew smoking was really really bad for you.
Now we have obesity, and everybody knows that it's really unhealthy to be fat. Is it going to take decades for people to figure out that eating two #1 meals at McD's twice a day is probably not conducive to a long healthy life?
There seems to be something in the US psyche that resists anything like "best practices". Maybe it's something in the human psyche, but just last year I was in Europe, where I traveled from Rome to Belgrade and didn't see the kind of morbid obesity that's normal here in the 'States.
You are welcome on my lawn.
No, 5 minutes on Wikipedia does not make you a researcher.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
Unfortunately the Snake Oil salesmen are a have a huge industry. Homeopathy being one of the biggest examples.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
Well, we've been there before. It sucked.
Fraud is -really- hard to prove. "I really thought this cobra venom cured my back pain, your honor. I was just offering my discovery to others for a small fee to cover my expenses."
Even liability is really weak. "You can't prove my horse adrenaline caused the heart attack. People have heart attacks all the time."
Without some large (perhaps governmental?) organization tracking such things, you'd never figure out what DID work.
Drug testing generally works. It's slow, it's bureaucratic, it occasionally screws up... but it works.
You CAN'T KNOW what the side effects in a real human population are until you've tried it in a decent sized trial. Before you do that, you'd better try a small test segment. Before that, you'd be highly irresponsible not to test it pretty thoroughly in analogues like animals first. Doing it responsibly takes a painful amount of time and money.
Sure, it really sucks when a lifesaving drug COULD have been given if it was known to be safe ahead of time... but you have to wait for the results. "You HAD the drug, my daughter DIED and your drug was available the next day!"...
I hope that's never me, but the alternative is worse.
You have to be trolling. 3D TVs and iPhones might be overpriced, but they do what they claim they can do. That's a world away from snake oil, memory water and magic crystals.
Many do, See learning happens out side of school, its hard sometimes to find those who do it, many who get seriously ill do research and learn a lot about their own diagnoses, large support groups exist out their to, these ppl research and look into any aspect that could help improve their lives and are quite often filled with those who *do* know that homeopathic remedies are BS and can talk your ear off about current treatments and clinical trials going on, I have seen this with family members with Cancer and Lupus.
Unless dealing direct with a specialist, these sorts of ppl can know a lot more about their own issue then most GPs.
As a reminder, their is so much that GPs and doctors need to know that covers such a wide area that mistakes do often happen, take the 50-100k ppl a year who die in America from having adverse known drug interactions Study Says E-prescription Systems Would Save At Least 50k Lives a Year
You have 5 Moderator Points!
Which Helpless Linux zealot/MS basher do you want to mod down today?
Nope. That's why it's answerable to we, the people.
On purpose.
It'd be unfair to ask any given individual to be that accountable, but the collective whole? That's another matter.
Of course, sometimes the answers you get may not be what you want, but when has that ever not been true?
More than the tin-foil hat salesmen.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
Indeed. My iphone is a total chick magnet, and 3DTV? When they come over and watch that, their panties literally drop right off!
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Because people would self medicate. This is already a problem without the government encouraging it.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
sure, we can do that after we abolish trade secrets and patent protection (we'd of course retain the mandatory publication part, so as to have that information there in the first place). fair enough?
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
At least we're doing stem cell research and companies are investing in it. IF I were dying you bet your ass I'll take my chances on this. After all, what's the alternative when time is running out?
Sorry, that was a typo.
It probably will take decades. Mostly because people are being given wrong information. For example, your McDonalds comment. A McDonalds Quarter Pounder is not bad for you. The Pasta you made at home is. People are buying candy as health food because it is "Fat Free". Then you have the problem that "obesity" is so incorrectly defined that every Mr Universe for decades has been defined as "obese" while people who reduce their BMI by replacing muscle with fat are being patted on the back for "getting in shape".
The worst that can happen is you spend $50k on a treatment that doesn't buy you a single god-damned day of further life. Now, not only are you dead, but you get to go to your grave knowing that you've heaped an extra burden on your loved ones for nothing. But since at the time of making the decision you're still in the bargaining stage of grief, you don't think about that. The heartless scammers running these cons count on that.
Nope, the worst that can happen is that you get a reaction or other problem from the stem cell treatment and die from the treatment possibly fairly quickly after the treatment. So a patient with something that might have been chronic but manageable or treatable ends up dying prematurely. Stem cells can cause cancers or do other bad things such as develop into the wrong type of tissue (e.g. bone tissue in the middle of an organ), the trick is getting them to turn into the right type of tissue in the right places and to prevent them from multiplying out of control.
"When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes. When you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it
Yes, that's exactly what the FDA does, but only after running simulations to predict drug interactions, running multiple animal studies to test if the drug works for the corresponding animal illness, and then running tightly controlled studies on a limited (and very small, but large enough sample) number of people who already have the illness and are completely briefed on what the FDA knows about the drug so far, and if all of those things return results that indicate that the drug is effective for its designated purpose, does not have serious or poorly-studied side effects, and is likely to be safe the population at large, then yes, the FDA does run tests to see what happens.
However, that is strikingly different than the libertarian dys/utopia that is the topic of discussion, where companies and anybody with a needle can just inject anybody with or without informed consent to study the effects of whatever arbitrary chemicals they have concocted. Now, I'm sure people will respond with something along the lines of "but those people can still sue", and while this is true, lawsuits do not bring people back from the dead (SCO excepted), money is a notoriously poor substitute for a loved one, and this society has simply decided that it is safer and more valuable for us all to have a centralized authority to conduct those tests in a carefully controlled manner before the chemical concoction is made publicly available in the form of a prescription.
I do not know why we are having this discussion in the year 2012, but I guess that is the result of people not remembering their history lessons in grade school and the current crop of ideologically-driven politicians and influential people who overpower the more pragmatic and realistic of us without sufficient means (read: money) to be heard on as broad of a scale.
It's called population control, if you are stupid enough to ingest snake oil without knowing all the side effects, Darwinism has chosen you.
How do you know the side effects without the FDA forcing the manufacturer to test the drug. Hell, some side effects don't show up until tens of thousands of people have been taking a drug or class of drugs for years and database to monitor drugs being prescribed gets mined for correlations between prescriptions and side effects.
"When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes. When you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it
Your rant would sound better if the nice lady down the street wasn't a public school teacher. You are likely unaware of this, but public school teachers make up a disproportionally high percentage of home schoolers. Care to guess why?
You joke, but if you ask a chick to come back to your place to watch your 3DTV and she says yes, I expect your chances of getting some to be pretty darn high. At that point, the two of you are just going through the motions, and are not even trying to make a good excuse for her to go back to your place.
The second one person out of a hundred has a positive outcome on some test drug, all known dangers are totally ignored and everyone wants it. The corp selling the drug starts to suspect there's a problem, but they are making a lot of money so they wait for more conclusive proof. Two years later, everyone's dead of kidney failure.
What if the majority of the people taking the drug would have been dead within three months anyhow? I have two daughters. One is nearly two years old, and the other is six months old. I'm 31. If you have a moment, you might enjoy the first video recording of my daughter Susan's first steps. If I were diagnosed with a terminal illness, and any treatment regimen (or combination of regimens, in close consultation with multiple physicians) gave me even a "somewhat possible" chance of spending a few additional months with my wife and children, I'd take it without question.
I'm also fully prepared to accept the potential consequences of treatments failing completely or worsening my condition in unforeseen ways, including the death of the subject (me). In my mind, the potential benefits may very well be worth the risks, and if/when I expire at least my final contribution to the human race can be a set of experimental data that contributes to the advancement of medical knowledge.
We tend to forget that we are members of a single species, on a single planet, in a single galaxy, in a very large universe. To put it bluntly, I matter to myself and my family. In the grand scheme of things, I don't matter at all. Neither do you. Acceptance of this fact can greatly influence a man's willingness to take part in things larger than himself.
Please reference this for perspective.
Write failed: Broken pipe
Hey, I take offense to that. My tinfoil hats are top quality headgear, specially tuned through our secret process to not only block mind control rays from the US Government, but all governments of the world, *AND* known and unknown extra terrestrials.
If you can provide clear documentation that your mind has been controlled by such entities due to any fault of our headgear, we will offer a "full moneyback guarantee".
(*) The full guarantee applies to the value(**) of the headgear.
(**) "value" is the original cost of materials before assembly, with deductions for use, manipulation, staining, or other incidental damages, as determined by our appraisers (***).
(***) Our appraisers are actually high school dropouts, who are authorized to refund up to 25% or $0.50, which ever is lower.
(****) Other conditions and restrictions may apply, which are available in our planning office (*****)
(*****) See the planning office in sub-basement 3, behind the door marked "Beware of the Leopard", in an unlit closet, in a locked file drawer, in a folder noted "File 13"
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
And then there are the double blind trials to considers, otherwise even with superb tracking all you have is correlation. Not to mention how absurdly reactive waiting for large scale effects to prove fraud is, it doesn't fix the problem, it just shifts it to the next wonderdrug.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
As long as the doctor explains the risks and possible side effects then yes stay the hell out! what we really need is an iron clad "Stupid fucking you" contract that ambulance chasers can't just bypass. a good example of that would be the wonder drug for psoriatic arthritis in the 80s Tegison. anyone that took it had to not only get a lecture about not having kids and agree to not have any kids or even have unprotected sex for a period of 10 years they also had a shitload of forms AND a film you had to watch and sign a contract saying you had watched it and understood, so what happened? A couple of lawsuit lotto bitches took the drug and immediately went out and had unprotected sex and got pregnant and of course when the kids were born horribly deformed an ambulance chaser sued the company for a shitload of money. in the end this drug that was a miracle for those with severe PA was taken off the market thanks to a couple of lawsuit lotto bitches.
So yes as long as the doc explains exactly what kinds of risk you are looking at then neither the feds nor the lawyers should be able to say shit.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Riiight, because they listened to us so well on the war with Iraq, free speeches zones, waterboarding and rendition rides, doing something about the border leaking like a sieve...oh wait, they completely ignored us. Hell the people in several states voted to legalize pot as well as gave the POTUS a petition and he gave in return the most flowery "LOL Goatse bitches!" speech i'd ever heard, frankly i'd have had more respect if he'd have just said "go fuck yourselves".
In the end with everything from Halliburton and the MIC to Monsanto the gov has made it clear they don't give a shit what you think, that is why ultimately the choice should be with the individual. Power corrupts and with the revolving door between the halls of power and the halls of industry frankly they don't care if you vote them out, as long as they do what their masters say they get a cushy job afterwards, oh and free healthcare and benefits for life to boot. must be nice.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
In other news, water is wet.
-- Terry
"The point is, people with all the tools in the world to find information on what works and what doesn't aren't going to use it correctly."
If that's the case, then the FDA can't make a correct decision, either. You've solved the healthcare "issue." If you get sick, do nothing and die, because no one can use information to make a correct decision.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
"Drug testing generally works. It's slow, it's bureaucratic, it occasionally screws up... but it works."
Fen-Phen
Cerivastatin
Vioxx
Rezulin
No, it doesn't work. It protects neither the patient nor the manufacturer.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
"Normal adults should be deprived of these decisions because normal adults will get ripped off and end up hurting themselves and their loved ones. "
So you would agree with the following statements:
Because people cannot make informed, rational decisions about their own health care, the government must do it. That includes denying unapproved treatments, requiring treatments with known benefits, and forcing lifestyle changes with known health benefits.
The fat lady down the street shouldn't be allowed to sit on the couch, watching TV and eating potato chips, because she is making an unhealthy, uninformed choice. That should be illegal, and she should be forced to exercise until she achieves a healthy weight. When grandmother gets cancer, she should not be allowed to enter hospice, but should be forced to undergo costly and painful chemotherapy.
It should be illegal for children under the age of 15 to possess or ride a bicycle, since that activity results in over 300,000 emergency room visits per year in the US alone.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
The Government doesn't intervene to stop people hurting themselves, though, does it? It intervenes to try and make sure that snake oil salesmen don't have a financial incentive to con people into paying money for treatments that are ineffective or even harmful. You can make all the badly-informed, irrational decisions about your own healthcare that you want to, the Government just won't let others misinform you for their own gain.
The FDA stand a far better chance of making the correct decision because they have personal access to a whole bunch of experts and the entire medical research community is watching them. It's just not possible to give the same level of support to an individual patient in making the right decisions - there aren't enough experts to go around - which is why we need to delegate the decision-making to the FDA.
I didn't say a Quarter Pounder was "bad" for you. I said that eating two of them lunch and two more and dinner every day was bad for you. Maybe it's not that "people are being given wrong information". Maybe it's that they don't pay attention to what they read and hear.
Oh, and I challenge you to walk through any US Wal-Mart and tell me that the morbidly obese people waddling and riding around in there got to that level of lab-accident fat because they ate too much "pasta that they made at home".
I travel to Italy every other year and I don't see the kind of scary, need-a-scooter-to-shop fat that you will commonly see in the US. I seriously doubt that it's even possible eat enough pasta to get as fat as some of the people you'd see here in the US.
You don't need to know your "BMI" to know if you're fat or not. And "Mr. Universe" has got things other than fat to worry about. For example, the fact that his testicles have shrunk to the size of black-eyed peas from all the steroids that his roommate has been shooting into his buttocks.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Yes, but information is available now and people have licensed doctors to consult. The snake-oil salesman argument is dumb. In the time of snake-oil salesman the doctor was just someone who studied a little anatomy and maybe some chemistry. If you could pull him away from his job at the post office or barber shop he would come around with the latest tools to drain your blood or hack something off for a small fee. You posture that by having a choice over medical treatments I instantly tele-port back in time. You sir, are an idiot.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
That sounds like a great plot for a South Park episode. The super best friends do battle with terrible lizards with Jesus packing an A-K.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
My brother has cystic-fibrosis and he can straight pwn the noob doctors. It is hilarious. He has never graduated high-school.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
The obesity is attributable to diet, but Europeans also walk a lot more than Americans do, because of the way the cities are organized, especially true the farther west you travel.
I've heard 'snake oil' commercials on the radio using words like 'clinically-proven' and 'FDA-cleared' to try to make people believe their particular 'dietary supplement' can actually cure disease without actually saying it.
I'm as against unneeded gov't intrusion as anyone, but shouldn't anything sold for human consumption be at least tested if not regulated, and anything that claims to be a supplement have to be proven to: 1) actually supplement something the body uses, and 2) work as claimed?
I'm so sick of all the weight loss/men's performance/hair loss/etc pills out there!
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
So there should be no laws against fraud at all?
The Government doesn't intervene to stop people hurting themselves, though, does it?
Mandatory seatbelts, mandatory seatbelt use, mandatory airbags, mandatory helmets for motorcycle riders ...
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
But do they have the education to understand what they are reading?
Ah, the Cult of the Expert.
Not that we don't need experts. We do, obviously. What we don't need is the Cult of Expertise, which tells us that only experts understand things in their field, and that everyone else should, without question, just shut up and do as they're told by said experts. Nevermind that even in highly specialized fields, experts can disagree with each other vociferously on things.
You wouldn't want your next door neighbor to perform surgery on you. But it's silly... and quite arrogant... to miss the fact that it's quite easy to pick up books and fire up a browser to access a wealth of information where your neighbor can learn enough to understand the issues involved in surgery and make informed decisions regarding his self. This goes for any field. I don't have to be an expert in auto transmissions to read enough to spot trouble signs when they happen with my car. With stem cells, there's enough info out there... much of it peer reviewed... that's freely available to the public.
Eisenhower famously warned of the Military-Industrial Complex in his farewell speech. What he also warned of in the same address was the danger of citizens falling into line behind a scientific-technological elite, without question. We need to pay more attention to that part as well.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Define "a long time." Sorry if you have to sit on your ass for an hour and search for an answer. Now you are pedantic and stupid. See how that works?
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
There seems to be something in the US psyche that resists anything like "best practices".
No, there's something in the US psyche that makes us go "OK, you say we should do this, or stop doing that. Prove it". And that takes time. We've seen too many snap-judgement science mistakes... Alar on apples anyone?... to just blindly fall into line. We see "best practices" discredited all the time, usually after a decade or more (Huh, how about that?) of experience on the issue. Scientists can make mistakes. They can misinterpret data. They can make bad theories. Lots of people were eating bran muffins everyday in the 80's because they were told... by scientists... that eating them would reduce cholesterol. In the 90's, scientists told them Sorry, you're wasting your time.
Best practices? Sure. But prove it first.
BTW, obesity is on the rise in Europe too. Guess they're developing a resistance to "best practices"?
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Source?
Space Shuttle was a program that strapped humans to an explosion and tried to stab through the sky with fire and math
The debate as to whether these people should be labelled snake-oil salesmen or experimentalists would seem to rest on this. Is this government intrusion into people's right to choose, or a regulatory agency stepping in to keep people safe?
It's much simpler than that. These people aren't experimentalists because they aren't running any sort of scientifically valid experiment. They don't have a control group. They don't have animal testing to base their theories on. They haven't even identified what conditions they are treating. They are just injecting whoever is willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars, for whatever ailment they happen to have.
That isn't a experimental science; that's a scam. If you want to make millions of dollars selling medical treatments, then put your money where your mouth is and prove that the treatment works with a valid clinical trial.
Hardcore libertarians always have this view of themselves as gods-made-flesh, always rational, always informed, always able to make the best decision for themselves, and HOW DARE anyone tell them otherwise.
Of course I feel that way. I am rational and informed, so naturally I'm libertarian. I don't have any evidence of being an incarnation of a deity though, so it's rational to believe that I am not.
I'm not a hardcore Libertarian. Governments are necessary, and regulating drugs and other medical treatments are valid responsibilities for governments. However, each person also has the responsibility to attempt to learn the facts. Governments are not inherently impartial; in many cases, they are quite the opposite.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.
I'm certain you don't see the self-contradictory nature of that statement.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
"So there should be no laws against fraud at all?"
Where do you get the impression that I believe that? I don't. There should be very strong laws about fraud (deceit, misrepresentation). But that's the difference between the symptom and the cause. As long as the truth about the risks and benefits of a treatment are provided, it should be the patient's choice. If a "terminal" patient is offered a treatment which is 99% likely to kill them, and 1% likely to make them better or cure them, it should be their choice to weigh those risks/benefits.
If you're calling homeopathic medicine a fraud, I disagree. I don't believe a word of the explanation of how it works, but I believe it does work for some people, just as the placebo effect does.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Indeed. I'm occasionally involved in clinical research and I've often thought there's not really any such thing as informed consent. Many processes are too advanced or complicated for a normal member of the demographic to understand. Sometimes you can't have informed consent because of the nature of research: "we're going to do [this], and we know it will impact [these] systems and are testing to see if it can do [that], but we can't tell you what we don't know yet about [other outcomes].
There is "you've been told something too complicated to understand"-consent, and "you've been told a little story that's a massive simplification of what's really going to happen"-consent, "let us rekindle that previously crushed hope with something that may or may not get you better"-consent, and of course "sign this paper which is too boring to read"-consent.
Now I'm all for clinical research, and I very much respect the volunteers I get in mine (and have even participated in others' research when I'm not involved in design or analysis). But sometimes I think informed consent is a misnomer required by IRBs to transfer some of the ethical responsibility of research off of their chest. Ultimately, the ethics of clinical research rest on the shoulders of the researcher. IRBs exist to keep the lemons out of the system. The FDA exists (among other reasons) because the IRBs don't always work (or exist), and then it's time to make lemonade. I do think it's critical to tell a volunteer about what might happen, but expecting fully informed and comprehending subjects is usually a false assumption.
Should average person be able to risk his/her own life, regardless of whether they even understand the risk? It is their life, it does not belong to you or the government in any way.
AFAIC the only thing that the person must do before taking this type of a risk is to sign a form stating that he is absolutely willingly gambling with his own life and no government must be able to stop them.
You can't handle the truth.
The point is that the risks aren't known for such treatments, if they were it'd be science not snake oil, and salesman always lie. Hell, the risks for many prescriptions aren't even known fully and those have had an order of magnitude more verifiable studies. People are also easy to convince. Have fun proving it after you're maimed or dead.
Do seriously you think Pharmaceutical companies wouldn't lie, cheat, bribe and probably kill to make their "unproven drugs" look good? Who cares if it kills a100k people as long as they make a buck in the process and the litigation costs less than their profits.
There's a reason we have so many laws against fraud, con man and so on.
If a "terminal" patient is offered a treatment which is 99% likely to kill them, and 1% likely to make them better or cure them, it should be their choice to weigh those risks/benefits.
Steve Jobs took that option, it possibly killed him. A kid I know lost his whole eye socket because his parents took that option.
This isn't only about terminal patients, this is about unpleasant proven medication versus pleasant unproven snake oil. Except by the time you're done with the snake oil the actual treatments may no longer be able to save you or the side effects might be a lot worse. Most disease don't sit still while you dick around with fifty treatments.
I don't believe a word of the explanation of how it works, but I believe it does work for some people, just as the placebo effect does.
Which means it doesn't work since the same effect can be gotten from any placebo. Or from doing nothing at all. Amazingly our bodies can heal n their own which is why drug studies are such complicated things to do correctly.
Well there go my mod points. Hemachromatosis runs very strong in my family on both sides. I started showing early signs of it about a decade ago and drawing blood is a very effective treatment of it. It has never manifested in me but I did have elevated iron levels so my doctor suggested that I consider donating blood as that would help keep it in check and possibly prevent it from ever manifesting. So now I donate blood every 8-10 weeks and help not only my self but others plus get some cookies and a pop, as an added benefit I found out I am a universal donor (O- blood type) which is always in demand. My doctor also suggested I say clear of eating liver which is probably what I will miss the most as I make a mean liver and onions. Getting pricked every 2 months is a small price to pay compared to the other side affects of the disease.
Time to offend someone
from the article: "Celltex was founded by Eller and Stanley Jones, the orthopaedic surgeon who performed Perry's procedure, and it uses technology licensed from RNL Bio in Seoul. Because clinical use of adult-stem-cell treatments are illegal in South Korea, RNL has since 2006 sent more than 10,000 patients to clinics in Japan and China to receive injections."
This is slashdot. Most people here would probably think that the chick is coming over to see the TV.
Of course, this all presupposes there's a female in the equation, so the whole thing might be bogus.
There is one major flaw in your obvious "carbs are bad" idea. Carbohydrates have been the backbone of human caloric intake since the dawn of agriculture thousands of years ago. The "staple" food in nearly every country in the world is a grain, legume, or starchy root. Rice, Wheat, Potatotes, Plantains, Cassava, Corn, Yams, Soybeans, Lentils, etc. Nearly Every. Single. One. (The exception would be soil-poor areas such as the Arctic; you eat enough whale blubber and caribou jerky, you can avoid scurvy, but it's tough.) Once we shifted away from being hunter-gatherers, it is only in relatively recent times, and even then, only in some countries, that a high-protein, low-carb diet was even POSSIBLE for the average man. Yet the obesity epidemic is far more recent than the ready availability of surplus caloric intake (in the form of starch and sugars) throughout the developed world.
We can't even blame it on white flour and white rice: they've also been available and used for centuries, due to the superior longevity of flours (or rice) with the bran removed.
A McD's quarter pounder value meal (with fries and soda), consumed on a regular basis, along with other high-calorie, low satisfaction food choices, and the sedentary lifestyle of the average American, IS unhealthy for you, and far more so than the same-sized plate of pasta made at home you could eat instead of the McD value meal.
You eat plenty of those plates of pasta, but keep yourself fairly active, eat vegetables, and supplement the diet with some amount of protein, and it won't hurt you at all, in addition to being much cheaper, lower in cholesterol and fat, and better for the environment, than high-protein choices such as dairy or meat. If you try and live off those QuarterPounder meals, you'll learn in short order how much more unhealthy it is than plates of pasta at home.
"occasionally screws up" was right in the quote.
I'm fairly sure there's more than a handful of FDA drugs on the market. Percentage-wise, it's mostly working. Half a dozen or even a couple dozen bad drugs out of thousands of generally good drugs isn't that bad a record, given how hard it is to get that stuff right. Are mistakes sometimes made? Yes. Are some of those mistakes exasperated due to corruption? Sure. Step back and get a little perspective, though. It's way better than virtually no testing at all, which is what you'd get if drug companies didn't HAVE to pay for it.
You'd seriously advocate sending 95% of the population back to the age of snake oil salesmen because you think you could do better for yourself? "F*ck the weak and the stupid. Darwinism for the win!" ? :)
OK, so try restating your position in a more legitimate way. Saying that eating carbs (french fries and soda) is less healthy than eating carbs derails any point you are tying to make.
This is exactly why people get bad information. I point out that every Mr. Universe is considered "obese", and your response is that they have "things other than fat to worry about". We are not discussing other things. We are discussing fat. Our current government/medical/insurance industry claim that every Mr Universe has had too much body fat, and should have eaten less and gotten more exercise.
While many will say the homeopathic remedy works and many more will say it does nothing, absolutely nobody believes it could spawn weird tumors like some experimental stem cell treatments have.
At the same time, I would rather that the FDA operate in an advisory capacity.
The worst that can happen is you spend $50k on a treatment that doesn't buy you a single god-damned day of further life. Now, not only are you dead, but you get to go to your grave knowing that you've heaped an extra burden on your loved ones for nothing. But since at the time of making the decision you're still in the bargaining stage of grief, you don't think about that. The heartless scammers running these cons count on that.
The other alternative is that you spend $100k for the same treatment after the Feds drive the cost of development through the roof.
Or that you spend $0k, because there was not treatment at all available.
Or that you spend $75 for the same treatment, but you receive it in Mexico or India.
The FDA's hegemony over what is available is destructive. At most, there should be an FDA Approved program that citizens can check to see what a supposedly unbiased government panel knows about a process/procedure/drug. But caveat emptor should always be available to the person with the cash, and the person with the cash should always have the final say in how it is spent. That is called FREEDOM.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
At least the planning office isn't at Alpha Centari...
You pharmacist, the guy who checks your prescriptions for dangers and counsels you on proper drug therapy has at least four years of professional education.
The pharmacist has to know about a lot more than just the one health issue I might have. And, why wouldn't I consult the pharmacist? Why would I not get my doctor's opinion? Hell, I've questioned my mechanic about which oil is best for my car.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
fools and their money are soon separated.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
While I have not hear of any wide scale formal surveys on job position of homeschooling parents, I have been in many homeschool conferences and every poll taken has put traditional teachers at >5%. You can declare 'anecdote' if you want, but unless you have any sources that contradict it, I cite myself to be a source. My counting of many hundreds of homeschooling parents in a poll on that very subject is my data.
If you think that carbs (McDonalds french fries and soda) are the same as carbs (home cooked pasta) then you clearly have very little knowledge about nutrition. McDonalds french fries have almost as much fat as they do carbs. The fact that you could only find one bit of his argument to nicpick, and then didn't even get that right, isn't really helping your case.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Eisenhower famously warned of the Military-Industrial Complex in his farewell speech. What he also warned of in the same address was the danger of citizens falling into line behind a scientific-technological elite, without question.
Washington warned about political parties, and nobody has listened to that yet, so don't hold your breath.
Learn to love Alaska
Try being less obnoxious.
There is nothing unhealthy about "eating carbs". People aren't getting the kind of globby, scary fat that you see in your town's K-Mart from "eating carbs". Even the phrase "eating carbs" is about as meaningless as "drinking liquids". Humans have thrived on carbohydrate-heavy diets for most of our history. It's only recently that we are seeing the kind of science-fiction fat that is common. The problem is not "carbs". And it's not the little charts that you see in doctors' offices that display healthy ranges of height/weight or BMI.
Don't get people thinking that the reason they are morbidly obese is "too much homemade pasta". It's incorrect and misleading.
And please provide a link to a Mr Universe being told by the government/medical establishment/etc. that he is too fat. You've made the assertion several times now, and I know you're just waiting to be called on it. So please, provide your little triumphant show-and-tell about all the Mr Universes being told they are too fat.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I guess so. I suppose Europeans are as susceptible to advertising as anyone. And make no mistake. Advertising is the problem. Effective advertising by design encourages people to resist best practices.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I'm feeling a little snarky, so I ask how is that possible? Shouldn't those teachers be in school? I know that that is a ridiculous response, so I'll try harder.
I understand that it is your experience that many parents of home schooled kids are teachers. I cannot disprove that or even provide a good statistic about the relation between teachers and homeschooling. I would, however, point out two possible issues. A teacher who has a difficulty with the system themselves, not necessarily related to the education, could be more likely to home school. Also your own views may cause confirmation bias.
According to the Department of Education, in nearly 60% of the households that home school neither parent has more than "some" college education. I'm not positive, but don't you need a bachelor's to teach?
Space Shuttle was a program that strapped humans to an explosion and tried to stab through the sky with fire and math
Parents are generally considered competent to make decisions for children.
Performing a non-parent approved medical procedure on a child would involve quite the liability.
I do stemcell research for a living. You cant possibly understand how reckless and ridiculous your libertarian assumptions are. Let me guewss, you already know everything, just as all good libertarians should.... bye.
The highly likely outcome of unproven therapies from stemcells are cancerous tumors. You might need the relvant education to know how dangerous stemcells are or can be.
Let me use a metaphor. Stemcell therapies will be like ballistic missles; very powerful and effective, but likely self destructive to its user if not properly tested and trained.
Do you know what you get when you inject stemcells into a mouse? A tumor, or several tumors.
This isnt a gerber multi tool, nor a bike, or a metal alloy. This isnt even a very solid science yet; there are many unknowns that are yet to be fully culled/understood.
Stemcell based therapies, currently, by and large are *NOT* simple or predictable "products" to which any consumer could ever make safe decisions. Not knowing this, but assuming you know better is a fault of ego or lack of humility in education.
Let me ask you a serious question that is highly relevant.
When you reprogram fibroblasts to stemcells, termed induced pluripotent stemcell, why do some female cells reactivate both X chromosomes, but others do not? What developmental problems may arise from abnormal chromosomal activity? How can this issuebe addressed appropriately for clinical applications?
You cant answer those questions because the best in the field still are *trying* to find the aswer. This is only one of many many important details.... maybe you understand that stemcells are more like nuclear reactors than pencil sharpeners.
The carbs in french fries are the same as the carbs in home made pasta. The fat in french fries are something different. The fact that you don't know this shows that YOU clearly have very little knowledge about nutrition OR the English language. That fact that I pointed out your intellectually dishonest argument and stopped there doesn't mean the rest of your post isn't wrong. When you blatently misrepresent the issue, there isn't much point in analyzing your whole post.
http://www.schwarzenegger.it/mro/schwarzenegger.html
Height: 6' 2"
Off Season Weight: 260 lbs
Competition Weight: 235 lbs
http://stanfordhospital.org/clinicsmedServices/COE/surgicalServices/generalSurgery/bariatricsurgery/resources/bmi_calculator.html?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=body%20mass%20index&utm_content=!acq!v2!s-b-13529620060-1678836940&utm_campaign=Bariatric+-+Search&gclid=CKKEoK2ayK4CFaJeTAodUWZV-w
Calling you out on your intellectually dishonest statement where you tried to claim that eating carbs is really eating fat is not "Obnoxious". Asking for a reference while implying that when it is presented, it doesn't count IS obnoxious. The fact is that pretty much every Mr Universe is now classified as "Obese", and that means the word no longer has meaning. Besides, your claim that "It's only recently that we are seeing the kind of science-fiction fat that is common." isn't even accurate. It is made up.
No Mr Universe is classified as "obese", you obnoxious little twit. Apparently, you didn't read the disclaimer that is right next to the BMI calculator:
"BMI is a measure of weight proportionate to height. Generally, BMI is considered an effective way to evaluate whether a person is overweight or obese, though there are exceptions to the rule. Some muscular people may have a BMI that puts them in the overweight range. However, these people are not considered overweight because muscle tissue weighs more than fat tissue "
Further, YOU are the one who tried to claim that "eating carbs is eating fat". YOU are the one who tried to claim that eating "homemade pasta" makes you fat.
I normally don't spend this much time on someone as unpleasant and dishonest as you, so I'll give you this one for free: If you act in your personal life anything like you act in conversation here, you are going to remain very lonely and very sad. Now go back under your bridge and don't come out until you've given this some thought and have learned your lesson.
You are welcome on my lawn.
That's OK, as snarky goes, yours isn't to bad.
Teacher can home school their kids in a number of ways. Some just instruct their kids outside of public school hours. Some have spouses that handle the instruction during school hours. Some are substitutes so they only work part time. The whole situation makes more sense when you consider that home schooling is so much more efficient that in younger ages, it is easy for home schooled kids to surpass their public school peers with only an hour or two of formal instruction a day. Home schooling also will typically not be restricted to "school time". Home schooling families will take every opportunity to have impromptu lessons day and night. One of the common lessons that are taught to home schooled children is how to learn. Thus, by the time the kids are middle school aged, most of their school work can be done without constant supervision.
No you don't need a degree to be a teacher.
According to your link:
Highest education level of parents
High school diploma or less: 206,000
Vocational/technical or some college: 549,000
Bachelor's degree/some graduate school: 502,000
Graduate/professional degree: 251,000
That is 755,000 and 753,000 respectively. That isn't 60%.
You admit that you don't have any data, you acknowledge that you don't know how the teaching gets done, but you assume that I have confirmation bias. I think it is fair to say that the actual polls I have been involved in are a more reliable source than your stereotype hearsay.
And just for fun, a joke being passed around within the homeschool community:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/432369_10150612179439643_300588559642_9025678_1552413540_n.jpg
I made a boo-boo. I was looking at the column to the left of the right numbers. Sorry.
Space Shuttle was a program that strapped humans to an explosion and tried to stab through the sky with fire and math
For your convenience, sir, we'll have a team of salesmen come to your home to demonstrate them. Please do not resist. Resistance is futile.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Oh, did I fail to mention that part?
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
The problem is WAY worse for those of use that are not body builders. For example, the same CDC page says that I am at a "normal" weight at -20% body fat.
As for the name calling, you seem to think that not believing your incorrect statements is the definition of lying, and get really offended when people make correct statements.
Further, YOU are the one who tried to claim that "eating carbs is eating fat".
Since you didn't seem to remember making the staetment, and think that I made the statement, I looked up 4 posts and found it was actually sirwired that made the statement. I pointed out that it was an illegitimate statement, and that was when you chimed in with obnoxious comments about not being obnoxious.
No problem. The chart is not exactly clear.
Months to years? You think you can understand stemcell biology, or discern risks, in an hour using google?
Lol. A little humility might serve a reality check to your ridiculous assumptions as to how easy it is to understand.
I should do an hour of research into nuclear reactors, too, before I order my own from Libertytech.... so I can understand all of the risks. (Sarcasm).
They did say "occasionally screws up" and protection of the manufacturer is void in Fen-Phen and Vioxx, where fraud by the manufacturer to pervert the process was discovered. Vioxx would still be around if they had just revealed what they learned when they did, rather than bury it. The real problem with Vioxx is that it violates "do no harm" even if it didn't have any side effects. I had surgery on my knee. The doc prescribed Vioxx. :No, it'll delay/prolong healing by suppressing bloodflow to the area."
Me: "So this will help me heal?"
Doc:
Me: "So why would I take it?"
Doc: "It keeps down the swelling, so it will reduce discomfort."
So no, I didn't take the pills that would delay/hamper recovery. Perhaps it's a different trade off for those with arthritis, but for a surgery recovery, Vioxx seems like a silly thing to take, and almost unethical to prescribe.
Learn to love Alaska
Given the differences in teachers and homeschoolers, 5% of homeschoolers being teachers still puts the numbers at about 1% of teachers homeschooling. They may be disproportionately represented in the numbers, but still tiny in absolute numbers.
Why are teachers disproportionately represented? Because with so much time off, what else are they going to do with their children?
Learn to love Alaska
Because people cannot make informed, rational decisions about their own health care, the government must do it.
Disagree. For one, you are assuming people can't make informed, rational decisions, not asking. And that's a separate question of its own. For another, we have a variety of organizations already deciding health care for others, for-profit insurance companies, non-for-profit medical organizations, and the government (multiple organizations of variety of jurisdictions). So the question is so loaded as to be invalid.
That includes denying unapproved treatments, requiring treatments with known benefits, and forcing lifestyle changes with known health benefits.
Disagree. Again, it's the job of the government to enforce "capitalism." "Capitalism" can't work if fraud runs unchecked. As such, the government is a required part of capitalism (even the Loonitarians agree, as someone runs the courts you are supposed to sue everyone in). Democracy has determined that the people would prefer the government prevent fraud than allow and prosecute it. The government should not "deny unapproved" treatments when taken with the current definitions. The current definitions are such that a US-approved drug, made in the US and shipped to Canada, is then illegal to re-import into the US because the drug "isn't approved" for importation (as it never needed to be because it's made here). That's a business-model issue, not a safety issue, and the government should get out of the way of that. But it doesn't because of the massive amounts of bribes paid by the drug companies.
You are ignorant of what and why for drug regulations. You do realize that studies used to do things like deliberately addict everyone in the study to heroine, then "prove" heroin tonics prevent headaches by giving maintenance doses to some of the addicts and not others? Then use that rigged study to make ridiculous claims about the curative power of heroine tonics? Once you are a heroine addict, you *can't* make rational decisions about your health care, can you?
Or, to reflect your silly and loaded questions back at you:
It should be legal to lie about the contents of a product to get people addicted to it. It should be legal to deliberately harm others if you sell a treatment to the problem.
Learn to love Alaska
Mandatory seatbelts and use isn't necessarily about stopping them from hurting themselves. I've driven a pre-seatbelt car. I fell out of the driver's seat while driving. After a left turn, I slid off the slippery vinyl seat and landed on the passenger floorboard. The seat-belt would have increased the safety of all those around me. There are many stats backing up similar things, where cars are driven for substantial distances after an initial impact that could have/would have forced them from the driver's seat.
Motorcycle helmets were sold on a "taxpayer savings" argument, not "protect people from themselves." Your ignorance of the issues isn't a compelling argument.
Learn to love Alaska
3D TV and iPhones work. Stupid and ignorant are given full freedom. It's the informed liars lying for profit that aren't allowed that choice. Are you really arguing that you have the freedom to be lied to.
Learn to love Alaska
The reason they always give is that the public/private school system does not offer a quality education. Another big reason is the lack of socialization skills that public school children get. Of course, these are a couple of the primary reasons that most homeschool families choose to homeschool.
The primary reason given is that religious nuts don't want "secular" infection in their children.
Learn to love Alaska
If you don't want to sound stupid, you should think up stereo types that have not already been widely debunked.
They have not been debunked. That you find them inconvenient doesn't make them untrue. Homeschoolers are religious separatists and "militia" members. The first numbers I saw on it are "At least 76.8% [...] are some sort of conservative Protestant. 95.2% are some kind of Christian. "
So yes, stereotyping them as Christian is silly, stupid, and true. As for "debunked", I'd love to see how many atheists you have in your numbers homeschooling their children to protect them from prayer in school (mandatory in every public school I've ever attended in the USA).
Learn to love Alaska
I guess that is one way to try and get people to join your cult. When they don't believe in your magic beings, you just tell them that they are wrong, and that they members of your cult whether they believe it or not.
You probably also believe that all Mexicans steal stereos, all blacks people are on welfare, all gays are out to have sex with your children, and all white people are part of a conspiracy to keep minorities down too.
The funny thing is that what I say to you doesn't really matter, since I am clearly a figment of your imagination. Clearly I don't exist.
No, I don't believe such things. I believe that homeschoolers are almost all Christian, and the facts agree, and no anonymous pricks asserting it was "debunked" without any evidence at all (and the facts are supported by a couple quick searches) will change my mind. Sometimes the stereotypes are right.
Learn to love Alaska
Your weak arguments do not make you correct.
Regardless of how helmet laws were 'sold', the GOAL was to prevent injury to the rider BECAUSE it would save tax dollars paying for preventable injury.
As for seat belts, just because you happen to use them to hold you in your seat doesn't mean that's their primary, overriding, and mandated purpose. The purpose of seat belts is to prevent the driver from sustaining injury TO THEMSELVES during a crash. If your supposition were true then all that would be needed is a tiny belt around your waist connected to the driver's side B pillar or a strip of velcro.
It's amazing how your 'my little world' experience suddenly applies to the real world.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Okay, let's look at this logically.
Person #1 said: "Is it going to take decades for people to figure out that eating two #1 meals at McD's twice a day is probably not conducive to a long healthy life?"
You responded: "A McDonalds Quarter Pounder is not bad for you. The Pasta you made at home is."
That was your first logical flaw. They said "two #1 meals at McD's twice a day" and you simplified it to a single Quarter Pounder. Even disregarding their hyperbole about two meals twice a day, you're completely ignoring the entire rest of the meal to focus on the Quarter Pounder.
Person #2 (not the same as person #1) responded with several different arguments about why pasta isn't bad for you and McDonald's meals possibly are. Including the bit "A McD's quarter pounder value meal (with fries and soda), consumed on a regular basis, along with other high-calorie, low satisfaction food choices, and the sedentary lifestyle of the average American, IS unhealthy for you, and far more so than the same-sized plate of pasta made at home you could eat instead of the McD value meal." Which emphasizes the fact that the original discussion was about a full McDonalds meal and not just the cheeseburger.
You responded in a rather insulting manner and said "Saying that eating carbs (french fries and soda) is less healthy than eating carbs derails any point you are tying to make."
So the first time the person said "A McDonalds meal is unhealthy" and you changed the goalposts by saying that a McDonalds cheeseburger is more healthy than pasta. Someone else tried to correct you by saying a full McDonalds meal is less healthy than pasta, and you changed the goalposts in the other direction by focusing on the sides rather than the cheeseburger.
Then i responded to you, and note that i am neither Person #1 nor Person #2, although you seem to be assuming that i am, and pointed out that the nutritional contents of french fries and soda are very different from the nutritional content of pasta. I explicitly pointed out that french fries contain a lot of fat, while leaving it implied that non-diet soda contains a lot of simple sugars, unlike the complex carbohydrates of pasta.
Your response was: "The carbs in french fries are the same as the carbs in home made pasta. The fat in french fries are something different."
First of all, that's about the intellectual equivalent of saying "Salads are on my diet but hamburgers aren't, so i'll just put a hamburger on top of my salad and then it will be on my diet." You can't argue that fries and pasta are the same because the carbs are the same and just ignore everything else about them that's different. If we're going to argue that way than a Quarter Pounder is just as unhealthy as you claim pasta is, because the carbs in the hamburger bun are the same as the carbs in pasta. The protein and fat in the hamburger and cheese are something different.
And note that Person #2 never said that the carbs in french fries are different from the carbs in pasta. They said that french fries and soda _with_ a cheeseburger are less healthy than pastas. You're the one who changed the goalposts once by dropping the cheeseburger part in response to Person #1 and then changed them a second time when responding to Person #2 by trying to make the argument about only the fries and soda and then constructed a strawman argument by saying it was just about the carbs in the french fries vs the carbs in pasta (conveniently ignoring the entirely different kind of carbs in soda) without addressing any of the other nutritional factors.
Finally you claim that since you've "proven" that one part of the argument is intellectually dishonest, via changing the goalposts and a strawman argument, that you then don't need to address the rest of the points. I'm pretty sure that's some kind of logical fallacy itself. Not to mention the fact that when you accuse someone like Person #2 of being intellectually dishonest through a faulty argument but say nothing
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