gareth19 (imported) wrote: Mon Jan 17, 2011 7:27 am What it clearly explains is that you do not understand the distinction between temporal correlation and causation; this type of thinking is what logicians call the post hoc, propter hoc fallacy. Another term for it is superstition.

How does the testing of drugs not fall into that fallacy?

Arab Nights (imported) wrote: Mon Jan 17, 2011 6:14 pm How does the testing of drugs not fall into that fallacy?

Presumably, the double blind study in which neither the subjects nor the investigators know whether the real drug or a placebo has been given eliminates that problem. If you dont' know that you have actually received the miracle drug and the doctor doesn't know either, neither you nor he can make assumptions, fallacious or otherwise, about the relationship of any changes in your health to any treatment you have received. That's why the FDA is so adamant about not accepting drug trials that are merely testimonials to the efficacy of a known agent because they are subject to personal interpretation and fallacious reasoning.

It is also why people pour over the protocols with a fine-tooth comb. In the early sixties, thalidomide was prescribed to pregnant women in Europe, and a single woman researcher at the FDA held up approval of the miracle drug because the European data looked fishy to her. She failed to see a correlation between the drug and the claimed reduction in morning sickness. And while they were all trying to convince her what a wonderful thing thalidomide was and why there was no need for further testing (or convince the FDA that she needed to find another job), the shit hit the fan. The refusal to believe without double blind clinical trials that Vitamin C cures cancer or many other medical myths has saved innumerable lives.

chemcast scot (imported) wrote: Thu Jan 06, 2011 6:21 pm There is no way a teacher is going to make more money than a GP

It takes some arithmetic, nothing algebraic.

The doc has to purchase malpractice insurance as well as his own personal benefits unless he is contracted to the government or an HMO.

The teacher may seemingly receive less cash, a greater percent of that cash is spending money. No mal teaching insurance required.

Full union benefits.

Physicians are politically too conservative to unionize against the health insurance industry. So physicians loose while Blue Cross, et al profit.

Moi

There are also docs who work directly for big companies. I worked at a large corporate HQ for many years, and they had a complete medical department for the use of senior execs, and for legally required medical checks.

I got into a fight with a boss, who decided he wanted to fire me. Company policy required I get a medical exam to see if there wasn't a physical reason for my bad behavior (not being liked by my boss). No one asked if the problem was my boss's bad behavior.

The doctor was a 60ish Chinese woman, tiny and birdlike. This was the exam - I had to strip naked, walk heel-to-toe, the doctor used the stethoscope, then she examined my testicles very carefully, fondling and palpating them. That was it. The whole exam. Apparently, testicular cancer causes many people to fight with their bosses, so it has to be checked for right away.

I often think of this with deep resentment. This was no medical exam. It was a successful attempt to humiliate and intimidate a rebellious employee, as well as indulge the doctor's personal sexual curiosity. That "doctor" was on salary. Wonder how much she got paid?

P.S. My boss was fired before he could fire me. I found a new boss, and started the best job I'd ever had there. As they say, "living well is the best revenge."

gareth19 (imported) wrote: Mon Jan 17, 2011 7:27 am Another term for it is superstition.

I agree with you that there are a lot of careful testing that goes in drug approval today. However, that can get really tricky. When I read Leonard Mlodinow’s “The Drunkard’s Walk,” it just really impressed me how subtlety you can affect the results of testing without even knowing it. I tried to find reference to an article that I read in either Barron’s or the Wall Street Journal. It was by a person who had gone back and re-run medical testing they had done years ago as a young man. His results then fit what was expected. However, years later he got different results. I believe that phenomena of the first run of tests fitting the expected are even recognized now. Unfortunately, I cannot find the article and cannot spend more time looking for it, but it has been since Nov. 1.

While I think there is some wiggle room in arguing about statistics, that is not what I want to focus on. I will grant you that if I have an infection, I go to a doctor and they cure it with drugs. I will grant you that if I have a broken leg, I will go to a doctor and they will solve that problem. I am alive because traditional medicine is very good at that. However, when you move beyond that I do not buy that classical medicine always knows best.

Medical science is limited both by its knowledge and its prejudices, as are all human activities. Do you remember when only an absolute idiot (according to doctors) would think that ulcers could be caused by bacteria or cancer could be caused by a virus? I do. At one time traditional doctors condemned chiropractors as charlatans. I can think of three things for me personally that traditional medicine could not resolve or gave bad advice. Those got more into the chronic or psychosomatic issues. Fortunately, I tried other approaches when traditional medicine did not work. Saying piss on milk and bland diets and drinking beer and eating pizza solved my ulcer when I was 18. Regular vitamin B-12 as suggested by a naturopath solved recurring colds when I was 50. Going to a chiropractor saved nerve surgery when I was 55. When you get into those other medical issues, it is not unheard of to have auto-remissions of terrible things that medical science cannot explain and, I am sure, some percentage of ‘fakers’ that are cured by sugar pills.

There is another part here also. I hesitate to say this because as a young adult I was as atheistic as could be and a rigid believer in the strict scientific method. However, I and others I know with decades of life under our belt have had things happen that make you think that there is something else going on in life. I do not claim to know all the answers, only that the redneck Christian church I was raised in would be utterly hopeless to even begin explaining things. But I do know that I personally have been to two different people who healed by laying on of the hands. I do know that they solved issues and that other people have had exactly the same experience. I am not talking about snake handlers here, but reasonably educated and professional people. So the question becomes if you require the rigid testing under fixed conditions as in paragraph 1 or are you willing to have a shot with a treatment where multiple people with the same issue have been found the same result (relief)? I now am at least open to the belief that some people have a talent to help other people with health issues. I do not know if it is energy or what, but I am open to that.

You gareth 19, of course, are welcome to call all of this superstition, but I look at it as one more tool (which I do not understand) to keep us active thru the decades which we could not do without some type of help and intervention. A country manager a couple of years ago called me the mutant for still working at my age in tough conditions and I can assure you that I would not be doing that if I had only been to classical doctors.

bobover3 (imported) wrote: Wed Jan 19, 2011 1:32 am There are also docs who work directly for big companies. I worked at a large corporate HQ for many years, and they had a complete medical department for the use of senior execs, and for legally required medical checks.

I got into a fight with a boss, who decided he wanted to fire me. Company policy required I get a medical exam to see if there wasn't a physical reason for my bad behavior (not being liked by my boss). No one asked if the problem was my boss's bad behavior.

The doctor was a 60ish Chinese woman, tiny and birdlike. This was the exam - I had to strip naked, walk heel-to-toe, the doctor used the stethoscope, then she examined my testicles very carefully, fondling and palpating them. That was it. The whole exam. Apparently, testicular cancer causes many people to fight with their bosses, so it has to be checked for right away.

I often think of this with deep resentment. This was no medical exam. It was a successful attempt to humiliate and intimidate a rebellious employee, as well as indulge the doctor's personal sexual curiosity. That "doctor" was on salary. Wonder how much she got paid?

P.S. My boss was fired before he could fire me. I found a new boss, and started the best job I'd ever had there. As they say, "living well is the best revenge."

Oh my!

If it were just you and her in the room whatever happened would be her word against yours. What you describe is very, very unprofessional and if a formal complaint were filed with your state medical licensing board she could lose her license to practice medicine. You can bet that you were not the first, and once the word gets out the complaints just pour in.

From there it would be a short trip to court for the class action lawsuit that the company would lose, not to mention that the company would want to settle out of court to keep the news media from getting involved and ruining their business.

I cannot believe that any company would allow this scenario. Did you report it to human resources?

Oh my!

<edit>

A-1 (imported) wrote: Wed Jan 19, 2011 10:15 pm I cannot believe that any company would allow this scenario. Did you report it to human resources?

Who pays the salary of Human Resources?

Could it be,

I don't know,

maybe

the same folk who pay the salary of the company doctor.

Moi

Major Duh-Uh !

<edit>

A-1 (imported) wrote: Wed Jan 19, 2011 10:15 pm If it were just you and her in the room whatever happened would be her word against yours. What you describe is very, very unprofessional and if a formal complaint were filed with your state medical licensing board she could lose her license to practice medicine. You can bet that you were not the first, and once the word gets out the complaints just pour in.

From there it would be a short trip to court for the class action lawsuit that the company would lose, not to mention that the company would want to settle out of court to keep the news media from getting involved and ruining their business.

<edit>

Someone believes in justice.

Too much television influence.

Moi

There ain't no justice until there is social justice.

And Social Justice demands a system of a national medical insurance option. Blue Shield just raised my rate from under 6K a year to over 9K a year and the referred caller who called today cannot explain it except to say, 'several rate increases over the last year'. It is a 2K deductible and 30% me and almost no drug coverage. Stuff beyond out of pocket limits always seem excluded.

We are talking two adults beyond child bearing.

May as well buy HMO or Kaiser and die if i get sick or injured

A-1, thanks for your concern. This happened about 18 years ago, so it's much too late to complain. I was on the ropes then, with my boss gunning for me, so my complaints would have been ignored, or might have boomeranged. My "inventing" such "outrageous accusations" would have been further evidence of my "dangerous instability."

In any big hierarchy, the unwritten law is that the hierarchy protects itself. If I could successfully challenge bosses, then so could others. That would be the first step to the French Revolution in corporate America. So bosses always protect other bosses, even when they know they're wrong. It's a survival thing.

I was lucky to find a new boss who was himself a non-conformist and valued that quality in me. The Human Resources Department actually sent him a letter urging him not to hire me. He thought I must be good to rate a letter like that, and he was right. We did great work together for the next six years. Like I said, I was very, very lucky to find this guy. If I'd tried to stir up trouble over that "medical exam," it might have finished me off. Hierarchies defend themselves.

Doctors serve many purposes. One is health. Another is defense of the status quo. Psychiatry is especially good at that. The official definitions of mental illness reflect society's prevailing views. The definitions can change with the political winds. "Inconvenient" people can be diagnosed as ill, and gotten rid of. There was a front page article in the NY Times a few weeks ago about the use of psychiatry to suppress dissent in China. The Soviet Union did the same. To a lesser extent, we do too.