[lbo-talk] Doug Henwood's Critique of Gary Null

Westrich, James james.westrich at umassmed.edu
Thu Mar 18 13:30:46 PST 2004


I think I was not clear. I meant it costs money to disprove false claims so no one does it and the quacks can thrive. Wojtek mentioned that "science says" that the null hypothesis has to be that things don't work, but while I would agree that is good science that is hardly how "people" generally think. SO quackery exists in the vacuum that the rigourous studies HAVE NOT DISPROVEN them and use their glorified anecdote compilitations to take the place of rigor.

I think there was some big money pushed at some folk remedies but so few came positive that the money has dried up for now. There are a few cases (like the baldness cure in Europe) that come from alternative sources that were standardized and overcharged.

I generally agree that good cures/care rise from the heap in . There is also the very real and far more destructive influence of the mis-use and overuse of good science and "good cures". The quacks are relatively harmless (and I would argue a distraction) compared to the damage of bad care and misapplied care of drugs/therapies/cures that do work in the right conditions. And those errors are not simply the inevitables ones because of our normal limits, I am talking about the default economic thinking in big medicine that ANY care we can justify is OK (which is why the economics create the errors of overuse and misuse--there are fundamental flaws rooted in the economics of the US delivery system).

Jim

Jim (original):
>I am not defending "quackery" at all but it costs money to do
>research and clinical trials so you do not see that much
>"alternative" trials.

If there really were an untapped trove of "cures" in the alternative armamentarium, wouldn't the drug industry be all over them, trying to standardize, patent, and overcharge?

Doug ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk

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