[lbo-talk] putting quackery to the test

martin mschiller at pobox.com
Tue Aug 8 14:35:01 PDT 2006


On Aug 8, 2006, at 1:47 PM, Doug Henwood wrote:


> According to this
> <http://seer.cancer.gov/csr/1975_2003/results_merged/
> topic_inc_mor_trends.pdf>, cancer mortality rates have been declining
> among those 64 and under in the US.
>

As cancer rates increase, mortality decreases. Suggests that if you have good insurance you can be kept alive for a long time. Medicare becomes the primary insurer at 65, eh?

But the original article, and topic of discussion, referred to the study on chondroitin and glucosamine, and I believe, compared it to data on celebrex (or maybe that was your contribution). It should be noted that the comparison is deceptive, because the objectives differ for the two agents. Celebrex has the objective of masking the pain, while the glucosamine/chondroitin attempts to rebuild the damage. I don't know how you end up comparing two agents with such differing objectives by their respective efficacy.

Martin



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