>
> The sort of medicine being (for the most part rightly)
> sneered at is no more connected with hippies than it
> is with Iowa farmers or detroit auto workers.
The Hell you say, practically the only time I ever see any hippies any more is when I go to Nature's Finest of Chuck's to buy smoothies and honey.
Chris Doss wrote:
>
> You're all a bunch of dirty hippies!
Jeez, the guff I gotta put up with from you people with indoor jobs.
Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> ravi wrote:
> >
> > WSJ wrote:
> > >
> > > Both studies failed to show clinical efficacy. All
> > > this should mark a sea change in how the public
> > > views such treatments.
> >
> > Why? The real comparison should be to the efficacy of
> > "mainstream" medicine (henceforth referred to as
> > professional-racket-medicine), especially as a ratio
> > of public and individual dollars spent.
"Racket" grossly undervalues orthodox medicine; for the market we've got in the U.S.A. I prefer the word "extortion."
> But that's what the article reported - a comparison of
> hippie arthritis
stiff achy fingers from rolling doobies mann
> treatments to orthodox ones (and a placebo). The NIH isn't
> staffed by idiots.
The NIH is surely chock fulla geniuses, but we aren't reading what their researchers wrote; we're reading a reporter for the WSJ - an excellent newsroom, for sure, but also capable of writing these two sentences back-to-back:
> The study found there was no overall statistical benefit
> except for Celebrex (tm., Marca Registrada, Pfizer GmBH,
> "our goal: making life better every day in every way!" [sm.]).
> Of note, 60% of the patients receiving placebo reported
> significant improvement.
60% perceptible improvement is significant!
At least that reporter spared me the catchphrase "expensive urine." That refers to the brightly-colored surplus vitamins you excrete whenever you ingest a larger volume than your body metabolizes; it comes up repeatedly when M.D.s or pharmco publicists try to convince you that you oughtn't take vitamin pills. "Expensive" is nonsense. When I went to a dentist recently to get a broken tooth yanked out he prescribed a prophylactic bottle of generic antibiotics to take a couple days ahead; that ran me $90. I spend about $40 a year on vitamin pills. I could suh-wear those pills make me "feel better," plus if I run out for a few days sometimes my gums bleed a bit when I brush my teeth, which never happens on 2000 mg/day of vitamin C.
Of course, since none of this data was recorded by Objective Science, I could be one of the duped 60% cited above; so what? "Feel better" is "feel better." The political point (wherever you see the initials "WSJ," start worrying about politics) is there are restrictive laws lurking in the bushes. Oh WSJ man, please don't take my placebo away.
Yours WDK - WKiernan at ij.net