In 1998 then Doctor Andrew Wakefield published a study in the medical journal The Lancet that claimed that the MMR vaccine causes autism, which was later found to be not true but still lead to a worldwide increase of measles cases, and in the end destroyed Wakefield's career.
There are many things that I've noticed about Andrew Wakefield (none of them good) and I've come up with about five different things.
So here are five things I've noticed about Andrew Wakefield:
5. He committed a terrible fraud.
I'm sure that everybody is aware that his aforementioned "study" was retracted in 2010 by The Lancet after a long investigation by the British Medical Journal and journalist Brian Deer. The investigation showed that not only had he manipulated the data in his study, it also found that he had patented his own measles vaccine a year before publishing his study, and that the study was funded by lawyers who sued vaccine manufactures.
To better understand how Wakefield manipulated the data in his study, please watch this video by Youtube science vlogger C0nc0rdance:
As awful as his fraud was it would not have been as bad as it became if it wasn't for the fact that so many people took his study seriously and decided not to vaccinate their children because of it. This has directly resulted in the world wide increases of measles and mumps infections and infections from other diseases as well because many people were not vaccinating themselves or their children due to fear of any vaccines, a fear that was brought on by Wakefield's study, which has also lead to numerous unnecessary deaths.
As for Wakefield himself his fraudulent study lead to his own career being ruined and his name being struck off the UK medical register, making it illegal for him to practice medicine in the United Kingdom.
4. He turned parents in paranoid liars.
One of the direct results of Andrew Wakefield's study is that many parents have become paranoid of vaccines and have chosen not to vaccinate their children despite being legally obligated to do so in many places before they enter them into school, and the fact that it's just good common sense to do so.
Inorder to keep their children in school while at the same time keep them un-vaccinated parents will often lie to health officials and school officials about either their religious or philosophical beliefs inorder to get a vaccine exemption for their child.
Other things that some parents will do inorder to fool health and school officials is that they will go to a fake doctor (ex. Naturopath, Homeopath) and get them to write up an exemption from getting vaccinate for their children, or write up they vaccinate the child when really they didn't.
These types of actions are dangerous not only to the children whose parents did not vaccinate them, but also to anyone that couldn't get vaccinated for a legitimate medical reason, or those who the vaccine didn't immunize them for some reason.
3. He's become the Lord Voldemort of science and medicine.
Much like Lord Voldemort from the Harry Potter book series Andrew Wakefield's name is something you don't use in a discussion about science and medicine, unless he is used as an example for when bad or fraudulent research is taken to seriously by the public.
As for the scientific and medical communities any research done by him before his 1998 autism/MMR vaccine "study" is somewhat taboo, and is usually avoided in research unless necessary. Any research done by him after his 1998 autism/MMR vaccine "study" is to never be used, unless you never want to be taken seriously and risk your career.
Also, you don't compare a doctor or scientist to Andrew Wakefield as doing so would be considered a huge insult, unless their research was sloppy or fraudulent and caused peoples' deaths.
2. He created alot of waste.
While the dramatic increase in vaccine preventable infections has been the most obvious result of Wakefield's fraudulent study, another thing his study has done is wasted alot of money.
The amount of money wasted because of Wakefield's study is probably within the hundreds of millions of dollars, and possibly within the billions. These costs include health care and hospital stays for people (especially children) who got an infection from diseases that are vaccine preventable.
Other costs include lost wages for parents who had to stop working inorder to take care of their sick children, and wasted money (not to mention man hours) to disprove and try to undo the damage caused by Wakefield's "research", money that could have used for more legitimate and better research projects.
Then there are the costs of funerals that can go into the thousands per funeral, and with thousands having died because of his research, the costs really adds up, but is overshadowed by the amount of pain caused by those deaths, which is a cost that is immeasurable.
1. He refuses to accept responsibility for what he's done.
Andrew Wakefield's fraudulent 1998 autism/MMR vaccine "study" has been described as "the most damaging medical hoax of the last 100 years". So far he has never accepted any responsibility for the damage done by his "study", nor has he faded from the public light.
To this day he continues to claim that his study was accurate, and that he didn't commit fraud, and that there is a conspiracy by pharmaceutical companies and public health officials to discredit him, and that they were paying bloggers to so, and also inflate the reports of deaths from measles.
In 2012 Wakefield attempted to sue Brian Deer, the British Medical Journal and it's editor Fiona Godlee for defamation, which was described by many as being frivolous, and was dismissed on jurisdictional grounds.
To this day Wakefield continues to work in autism research and claim the title of "doctor", both of which are considered to be highly inappropriate for him to do, and that many have said he should stop doing. He currently lives and does all of this in the United States because legally he can not in the United Kingdom.
Showing posts with label big pharma. Show all posts
Showing posts with label big pharma. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
5 Things I've noticed about... vaccines
Vaccines are a medical invention that has been around for a very long time, the very first one being invented by Edward Jenner in 1796 for small pox.
There are alot of things that have been said about vaccines, and taking a look at these claims, as well as the facts about vaccines, I've come up with fives things about them.
So here are five things I've noticed about vaccines:
5. They cause extinctions.
Most people probably don't know this, or do but rarely if ever think about it is that vaccines kill things and can very easily lead to the extinction of some species. Infact vaccines have already caused the extinction of one species, small pox.
Vaccines are also very well on their way to causing the extinction of polio, and could in due time and with enough people getting vaccinated, measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, and a variety of other well known diseases that can kill people, particularly young children, the elderly, and people with compromised immune systems.
Don't these viruses deserve to exist? I mean true these viruses have caused the deaths of millions, plus have left countless others disfigured and disabled, and other than to do all of that have no real purpose to exist, and are still debated over whether or not they are lifeforms, but regardless of all that you have to ask yourself, don't these useless and dangerous lifeforms/not lifeforms have a right to exist?
4. They prevent our children from having the childhood memories of our parents and grandparents.
My parents and grandparents didn't have the vaccines like my generation and my generation's children have, and I can't help but think of what kind of childhood memories might have been taken away because of vaccines.
Some of those memories I imagine would include attending the funeral of a classmate or family member that died from an infectious disease, or having to help another fellow classmate get around because they have trouble walking or are in a wheelchair due to polio, and even having to be rushed to the hospital because I contracted measles and my temperature got really high.
Yes, because of vaccines I have none of these childhood memories, nor does most of the people in my generation as well, but thanks to people like Andrew Wakefield and Jenny McCarthy, as well as numerous anti-vaccination websites, those childhood memories of the past generations are making a comeback.
3. They make people paranoid.
Vaccines make people paranoid, this is a fact.
The vaccines themselves don't actually make people paranoid, but just the thought of injecting a dead or weakened virus that's inside a mixture of chemicals that in high enough doses could be deadly, although are in low enough doses that they would be safe to take individually several times over and not harm a person, is enough to scare some people to not get themselves or their children vaccinated.
Now you couple this with something like the Wakefield paper, a paper was publish in the UK medical journal The Lancet and authored by then Dr. Andrew Wakefield that claimed that vaccines cause autism, a claim that has since long been discredited and debunked, and the paper itself was retracted due to fraud, as well as Wakefield being stripped of his medical license due to that fraud and gross ethics violations, and in the end you'll have a person to paranoid to do something which almost every medical doctor in the world says a person should do.
Maybe it's not really vaccines that cause people to become paranoid of them. Maybe it's bad and made-up information combined with a lack of willingness to do real research and a mistrust of pharmaceutical companies that cause people to become paranoid of vaccines?
2. They affect industries.
Vaccines do affect several industries and in big ways too!
The health care industry for one is greatly affected by vaccines. The reason for this is because when a vaccine makes someone immune from disease it greatly decreases their chance of contracting said disease which could require an extensive stay in a hospital and/or hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in medical treatments.
And lets not get started on all the iron lung and leg brace manufactures that have taken a major hit in profits due to the polio vaccine...
Then there are ofcourse the coffin manufactures who have had a sharp decline in the sale of children and infants' coffins due to the fact children and infants are not dying as often as they use to because they aren't contracting the deadly diseases that would usually kill them before they reached adulthood thanks to vaccines.
1. It's the greatest medical invention ever.
All joking and satire aside vaccines are without a doubt the greatest medical invention of all time.
Vaccines are safe, cheap, reliable, rarely have any negative side effects (and even those are not severe most of the time) but almost always has the positive side effect of making a person immune from a disease, and can wipe out some diseases, which it already has with small pox, and is well on it's way with polio and in the future may do so with other diseases like measles and mumps.
The money saved due to vaccines for just health care alone has been in the billions, and the lives saved due to vaccines may be immeasurable.
With the exception of legitimate health reasons there is no reason to not get vaccinated, nor is there any reason for a parent to not vaccinate their child.
To not do so simply irresponsible, and in some cases, criminal.
There are alot of things that have been said about vaccines, and taking a look at these claims, as well as the facts about vaccines, I've come up with fives things about them.
So here are five things I've noticed about vaccines:
5. They cause extinctions.
Most people probably don't know this, or do but rarely if ever think about it is that vaccines kill things and can very easily lead to the extinction of some species. Infact vaccines have already caused the extinction of one species, small pox.
Vaccines are also very well on their way to causing the extinction of polio, and could in due time and with enough people getting vaccinated, measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, and a variety of other well known diseases that can kill people, particularly young children, the elderly, and people with compromised immune systems.
Don't these viruses deserve to exist? I mean true these viruses have caused the deaths of millions, plus have left countless others disfigured and disabled, and other than to do all of that have no real purpose to exist, and are still debated over whether or not they are lifeforms, but regardless of all that you have to ask yourself, don't these useless and dangerous lifeforms/not lifeforms have a right to exist?
4. They prevent our children from having the childhood memories of our parents and grandparents.
My parents and grandparents didn't have the vaccines like my generation and my generation's children have, and I can't help but think of what kind of childhood memories might have been taken away because of vaccines.
Some of those memories I imagine would include attending the funeral of a classmate or family member that died from an infectious disease, or having to help another fellow classmate get around because they have trouble walking or are in a wheelchair due to polio, and even having to be rushed to the hospital because I contracted measles and my temperature got really high.
Yes, because of vaccines I have none of these childhood memories, nor does most of the people in my generation as well, but thanks to people like Andrew Wakefield and Jenny McCarthy, as well as numerous anti-vaccination websites, those childhood memories of the past generations are making a comeback.
3. They make people paranoid.
Vaccines make people paranoid, this is a fact.
The vaccines themselves don't actually make people paranoid, but just the thought of injecting a dead or weakened virus that's inside a mixture of chemicals that in high enough doses could be deadly, although are in low enough doses that they would be safe to take individually several times over and not harm a person, is enough to scare some people to not get themselves or their children vaccinated.
Now you couple this with something like the Wakefield paper, a paper was publish in the UK medical journal The Lancet and authored by then Dr. Andrew Wakefield that claimed that vaccines cause autism, a claim that has since long been discredited and debunked, and the paper itself was retracted due to fraud, as well as Wakefield being stripped of his medical license due to that fraud and gross ethics violations, and in the end you'll have a person to paranoid to do something which almost every medical doctor in the world says a person should do.
Maybe it's not really vaccines that cause people to become paranoid of them. Maybe it's bad and made-up information combined with a lack of willingness to do real research and a mistrust of pharmaceutical companies that cause people to become paranoid of vaccines?
2. They affect industries.
Vaccines do affect several industries and in big ways too!
The health care industry for one is greatly affected by vaccines. The reason for this is because when a vaccine makes someone immune from disease it greatly decreases their chance of contracting said disease which could require an extensive stay in a hospital and/or hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in medical treatments.
And lets not get started on all the iron lung and leg brace manufactures that have taken a major hit in profits due to the polio vaccine...
Then there are ofcourse the coffin manufactures who have had a sharp decline in the sale of children and infants' coffins due to the fact children and infants are not dying as often as they use to because they aren't contracting the deadly diseases that would usually kill them before they reached adulthood thanks to vaccines.
1. It's the greatest medical invention ever.
All joking and satire aside vaccines are without a doubt the greatest medical invention of all time.
Vaccines are safe, cheap, reliable, rarely have any negative side effects (and even those are not severe most of the time) but almost always has the positive side effect of making a person immune from a disease, and can wipe out some diseases, which it already has with small pox, and is well on it's way with polio and in the future may do so with other diseases like measles and mumps.
The money saved due to vaccines for just health care alone has been in the billions, and the lives saved due to vaccines may be immeasurable.
With the exception of legitimate health reasons there is no reason to not get vaccinated, nor is there any reason for a parent to not vaccinate their child.
To not do so simply irresponsible, and in some cases, criminal.
Friday, June 6, 2014
10 Lies Anti-vaccers tell
The anti-vaccination has caused alot of harm over the years with their fear mongering and lies. These lies have caused parents to become to afraid to vaccinate their children, and themselves as well, despite the danger in not doing so.
The following is a list of ten lies the anti-vaccination movement has told, and why they are just bogus:
10. Studies indicate that vaccines cause autism.
While there are "studies" that claim that vaccines cause autism, only one of these so called studies have been published in a well respected, peer reviewed scientific and medical journal. That study, the Wakefield study (which was published in The Lancet in 1998) was retracted in 2010 after it had been discovered that the main author of the study, Andrew Wakefield, had committed fraud. On top of that the findings in the study itself had been long since discredited and disproved before the formal retraction.
The studies that followed since the Wakefield study that claim that vaccines cause autism have never been published in any credible medical or scientific journals. The only places that these studies have ever been published are either in non-credible pay-for-publish journals, or websites that promote alternative medicine and/or conspiracy theories.
9. Signs of autism show up in children only after they have been vaccinated.
As the old skeptics' saying goes "correlation does not equal causation".
Just because a child starts to show obvious signs of autism after they have had their vaccinations, it's far more likely that they were showing signs of autism before they received their vaccinations and that no one noticed simply because the child was to young to show any noticable signs of autism to anyone but trained professionals.
8. Adverse reactions to vaccines are common, often severe, and can cause death.
Actually only about one out of every 300 people will have adverse reactions to vaccines. Most of the time these adverse reaction are mirror, short lived, and are more annoying than debilitating.
Occasionally a person will have a severe adverse reaction to a vaccine, some of which can be fatal, but these types of adverse reactions are very rare, only about one to two out of every million people. You have better odds dying in a car wreck to get a vaccination than you from the vaccination.
7. Vaccines have never been shown to be effective against reducing the spread of disease, and has even been shown to increase the spread.
I'm sure smallpox and polio would disagree. Actually alot of diseases would disagree because it's been proven time and time again that anytime vaccines were in wide spread use the rate of infections of a disease that the vaccines are meant to protect against will go down dramatically, sometimes even eliminating a disease in an area.
6. Natural immunity is superior to immunity via vaccination.
If you try to get natural immunity from a disease (i.e. getting infected and sick from said disease) there is a pretty good possibility that the disease that you hope to make yourself or your child immune from will actually kill you or your child, or atleast cause a permanent disability. Also in many cases it takes several weeks for this form of immunity to happen, during which time you will be sick as heck.
On the other hand immunity via vaccination is much faster, doesn't leave you sick, and is far, FAR less likely to kill you than getting immunity from a disease by getting infected by that disease.
5. Vaccines contain aborted fetuses.
This is completely false and is a distortion of the fact that the weakened forms of some viruses in vaccines are grown in a culture of cell lines derived from fetal tissue of fetuses aborted in the 1960's.
There are no fetal cells at all in vaccines.
4. Vaccines cause shaken baby syndrome.
No, rapidly shaking a baby back and forth and causing their head to flop around causes shaken baby syndrome.
This isn't even just a bold faced lie, this is child abuse apology.
3. Vaccines contain high amounts of toxic ingredients.
While vaccines do contain chemicals that in high enough amounts are toxic to humans, the amounts of these toxins in vaccines are so low that it wouldn't hurt anyone even if they took that chemicals by itself.
As the old saying goes "the dose makes the poison" and no vaccine contains enough of a certain chemical to make it poisonous.
2. Vaccines cause SIDS.
While DPT/DPaT vaccines have been suspected of being one of the causes of SIDS in the past, current studies into SIDS point to that abnormalities in the development and function of medullary serotonin may be the more likely cause of SIDS, and that vaccines do not cause SIDS at all.
1. Most diseases meant to be prevented by vaccines are rare and mostly harmless, and thus there is no reason to vaccinate.
Most diseases prevented by vaccines use to be rare, but a few diseases such as measles and mumps are making a comeback due to people not getting their children the MMR vaccine. Outbreaks of more common diseases such as the flu and whooping cough are made worse if large groups of people do not get vaccinated.
Also, while many people can get over these diseases they are far from harmless and can kill, especially if the person is very old, or very young, or has something wrong with their immune system and they are unable to fight off the disease.
Even if a disease is rare there is still no reason not to vaccinate against it, as vaccinating will help guarantee that disease remains rare, and may even wipe out that disease.
The following is a list of ten lies the anti-vaccination movement has told, and why they are just bogus:
10. Studies indicate that vaccines cause autism.
While there are "studies" that claim that vaccines cause autism, only one of these so called studies have been published in a well respected, peer reviewed scientific and medical journal. That study, the Wakefield study (which was published in The Lancet in 1998) was retracted in 2010 after it had been discovered that the main author of the study, Andrew Wakefield, had committed fraud. On top of that the findings in the study itself had been long since discredited and disproved before the formal retraction.
The studies that followed since the Wakefield study that claim that vaccines cause autism have never been published in any credible medical or scientific journals. The only places that these studies have ever been published are either in non-credible pay-for-publish journals, or websites that promote alternative medicine and/or conspiracy theories.
9. Signs of autism show up in children only after they have been vaccinated.
As the old skeptics' saying goes "correlation does not equal causation".
Just because a child starts to show obvious signs of autism after they have had their vaccinations, it's far more likely that they were showing signs of autism before they received their vaccinations and that no one noticed simply because the child was to young to show any noticable signs of autism to anyone but trained professionals.
8. Adverse reactions to vaccines are common, often severe, and can cause death.
Actually only about one out of every 300 people will have adverse reactions to vaccines. Most of the time these adverse reaction are mirror, short lived, and are more annoying than debilitating.
Occasionally a person will have a severe adverse reaction to a vaccine, some of which can be fatal, but these types of adverse reactions are very rare, only about one to two out of every million people. You have better odds dying in a car wreck to get a vaccination than you from the vaccination.
7. Vaccines have never been shown to be effective against reducing the spread of disease, and has even been shown to increase the spread.
I'm sure smallpox and polio would disagree. Actually alot of diseases would disagree because it's been proven time and time again that anytime vaccines were in wide spread use the rate of infections of a disease that the vaccines are meant to protect against will go down dramatically, sometimes even eliminating a disease in an area.
6. Natural immunity is superior to immunity via vaccination.
If you try to get natural immunity from a disease (i.e. getting infected and sick from said disease) there is a pretty good possibility that the disease that you hope to make yourself or your child immune from will actually kill you or your child, or atleast cause a permanent disability. Also in many cases it takes several weeks for this form of immunity to happen, during which time you will be sick as heck.
On the other hand immunity via vaccination is much faster, doesn't leave you sick, and is far, FAR less likely to kill you than getting immunity from a disease by getting infected by that disease.
5. Vaccines contain aborted fetuses.
This is completely false and is a distortion of the fact that the weakened forms of some viruses in vaccines are grown in a culture of cell lines derived from fetal tissue of fetuses aborted in the 1960's.
There are no fetal cells at all in vaccines.
4. Vaccines cause shaken baby syndrome.
No, rapidly shaking a baby back and forth and causing their head to flop around causes shaken baby syndrome.
This isn't even just a bold faced lie, this is child abuse apology.
3. Vaccines contain high amounts of toxic ingredients.
While vaccines do contain chemicals that in high enough amounts are toxic to humans, the amounts of these toxins in vaccines are so low that it wouldn't hurt anyone even if they took that chemicals by itself.
As the old saying goes "the dose makes the poison" and no vaccine contains enough of a certain chemical to make it poisonous.
2. Vaccines cause SIDS.
While DPT/DPaT vaccines have been suspected of being one of the causes of SIDS in the past, current studies into SIDS point to that abnormalities in the development and function of medullary serotonin may be the more likely cause of SIDS, and that vaccines do not cause SIDS at all.
1. Most diseases meant to be prevented by vaccines are rare and mostly harmless, and thus there is no reason to vaccinate.
Most diseases prevented by vaccines use to be rare, but a few diseases such as measles and mumps are making a comeback due to people not getting their children the MMR vaccine. Outbreaks of more common diseases such as the flu and whooping cough are made worse if large groups of people do not get vaccinated.
Also, while many people can get over these diseases they are far from harmless and can kill, especially if the person is very old, or very young, or has something wrong with their immune system and they are unable to fight off the disease.
Even if a disease is rare there is still no reason not to vaccinate against it, as vaccinating will help guarantee that disease remains rare, and may even wipe out that disease.
Friday, May 2, 2014
5 Things I've noticed about... Mike Adams
Mike Adams, the creator of the website Natural News, and one of the biggest promoters of alternative medicine there is, also known as non-science and non-evidence based medicine.
Now many things have been said about him and the way he acts, and I myself have noticed a few things about him as well.
So here are five things I've noticed about Mike Adams:
5. He's a conspiracy theorist.
Mike Adams, despite the fact that his website, Natural News, constantly writes about stuff related to medicine (by that I mean bad mouthing science and evidence based medicine and promoting alternative medicine, no matter how ridiculous or dangerous it is) is neither a doctor, nor a scientist. He is a conspiracy theorist who promotes just about every conspiracy theory there is, although he mainly promotes "big pharma" conspiracy theories.
Even if he was an actual doctor or scientist with a legitimate degree in either science or medicine it still wouldn't matter, because what he's promoting is non-science based medicine, as well as other types of conspiracy theories besides just the big pharma ones, and he's using fear mongering and paranoia inorder to promote these things, as well as bash science and evidence based medicine.
Pretty much his only "connection" with the health industry is his self appointed title of "The Health Ranger", and that his website is used as an example by those in the health care industry and those who promote science based medicine as what a bad science website looks like.
4. He's against all forms of science based medicine.
Mike Adams isn't just someone whom believes that there are a few types of science based medicines and medical techniques that are bad for you. Nope, he's against them all, no matter how much scientific evidence there is showing that something works, like chemotherapy, or vaccines, or drugs that help fight HIV (which he thinks doesn't exist in the first place).
It almost seems like anything that's accepted and promoted by a valid and respected medical organization is automatically viewed by Adams as dangerous and part of a conspiracy. I bet he would even tell people who come to his website not to use homeopathy, acupuncture, or chiropractic "medicine" if several legitimate medical associations were to come out and say that this stuff works and works well. Infact I bet he would claim that people in homeopathy, acupuncture, or chiropractic "medicine" were hiding the fact that their stuff doesn't work, and that they were sending out shills, or just using brain washed idiots to spread disinformation and make threats to try to scare off people who questions them, and even go so far as to sue people who criticize them...
Hopefully you see the irony in the that last sentence there.
3. He's created a website that's a perfect example of Scopie's Law.
Scopie' Law read's as this:
"In any discussion involving science or medicine, citing Whale.to as a credible source loses you the argument immediately... and gets you laughed out of the room."
While the original internet law is referring to another pseudoscience and conspiracy theory promoting website, Whale.to, it can easily be applied to Natural News. Infact some people even mistake Natural News as being the website originally talked about in Scopie's Law, and not Whale.to simply due to it's notoriousness for being wrong about everything.
Citing Natural News for anything other than an example of what a really bad science website looks like will make even the most open minded of skeptics disregard either an article or someone's argument, and pretty much view it as being bogus and full of lies.
2. He hates skeptics.
All conspiracy theorists and promoters of pseudoscience hates skeptics. Mike Adams is no exception. What is exceptional however is his venomousness towards skeptics [read here for an example].
He thinks that skeptics are willing to accept anything that "big pharma" says is good without question, and that we're all mindless zombies, simply because we don't believe what he believes, when in reality we accept science and evidence instead of unproven or disproven claims.
That's is just how he feels about your average skeptic like myself. Now with professional and famous skeptics, he thinks they are outright evil and has accused many of them of committing just about every sort of crime there is.
Maybe he doesn't actually not like skeptics? Maybe he just doesn't like people telling him he's wrong, and then using science and evidence to show him why he's wrong.
1. He's the perfect example of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
What the Dunning-Kruger effect basically states is that people who are not very intelligent will often overestimate their own intelligence and don't question themselves over whether or not they are right or wrong.
Mike Adams is a prefect example of this.
His articles on his website are written in such a way that while it's obvious to most people that he doesn't know what he's talking about, it's also quite obvious that he thinks he knows what he is talking about.
This is probably the reason why he created a website like Natural News in the first place. He believes that alternative medicine is good for you, and that everything else is bad, and because he is so confident in his own intelligence he doesn't second guess himself, and doesn't believe that you should either.
Now many things have been said about him and the way he acts, and I myself have noticed a few things about him as well.
So here are five things I've noticed about Mike Adams:
5. He's a conspiracy theorist.
Mike Adams, despite the fact that his website, Natural News, constantly writes about stuff related to medicine (by that I mean bad mouthing science and evidence based medicine and promoting alternative medicine, no matter how ridiculous or dangerous it is) is neither a doctor, nor a scientist. He is a conspiracy theorist who promotes just about every conspiracy theory there is, although he mainly promotes "big pharma" conspiracy theories.
Even if he was an actual doctor or scientist with a legitimate degree in either science or medicine it still wouldn't matter, because what he's promoting is non-science based medicine, as well as other types of conspiracy theories besides just the big pharma ones, and he's using fear mongering and paranoia inorder to promote these things, as well as bash science and evidence based medicine.
Pretty much his only "connection" with the health industry is his self appointed title of "The Health Ranger", and that his website is used as an example by those in the health care industry and those who promote science based medicine as what a bad science website looks like.
4. He's against all forms of science based medicine.
Mike Adams isn't just someone whom believes that there are a few types of science based medicines and medical techniques that are bad for you. Nope, he's against them all, no matter how much scientific evidence there is showing that something works, like chemotherapy, or vaccines, or drugs that help fight HIV (which he thinks doesn't exist in the first place).
It almost seems like anything that's accepted and promoted by a valid and respected medical organization is automatically viewed by Adams as dangerous and part of a conspiracy. I bet he would even tell people who come to his website not to use homeopathy, acupuncture, or chiropractic "medicine" if several legitimate medical associations were to come out and say that this stuff works and works well. Infact I bet he would claim that people in homeopathy, acupuncture, or chiropractic "medicine" were hiding the fact that their stuff doesn't work, and that they were sending out shills, or just using brain washed idiots to spread disinformation and make threats to try to scare off people who questions them, and even go so far as to sue people who criticize them...
Hopefully you see the irony in the that last sentence there.
3. He's created a website that's a perfect example of Scopie's Law.
Scopie' Law read's as this:
"In any discussion involving science or medicine, citing Whale.to as a credible source loses you the argument immediately... and gets you laughed out of the room."
While the original internet law is referring to another pseudoscience and conspiracy theory promoting website, Whale.to, it can easily be applied to Natural News. Infact some people even mistake Natural News as being the website originally talked about in Scopie's Law, and not Whale.to simply due to it's notoriousness for being wrong about everything.
Citing Natural News for anything other than an example of what a really bad science website looks like will make even the most open minded of skeptics disregard either an article or someone's argument, and pretty much view it as being bogus and full of lies.
2. He hates skeptics.
All conspiracy theorists and promoters of pseudoscience hates skeptics. Mike Adams is no exception. What is exceptional however is his venomousness towards skeptics [read here for an example].
He thinks that skeptics are willing to accept anything that "big pharma" says is good without question, and that we're all mindless zombies, simply because we don't believe what he believes, when in reality we accept science and evidence instead of unproven or disproven claims.
That's is just how he feels about your average skeptic like myself. Now with professional and famous skeptics, he thinks they are outright evil and has accused many of them of committing just about every sort of crime there is.
Maybe he doesn't actually not like skeptics? Maybe he just doesn't like people telling him he's wrong, and then using science and evidence to show him why he's wrong.
1. He's the perfect example of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
What the Dunning-Kruger effect basically states is that people who are not very intelligent will often overestimate their own intelligence and don't question themselves over whether or not they are right or wrong.
Mike Adams is a prefect example of this.
His articles on his website are written in such a way that while it's obvious to most people that he doesn't know what he's talking about, it's also quite obvious that he thinks he knows what he is talking about.
This is probably the reason why he created a website like Natural News in the first place. He believes that alternative medicine is good for you, and that everything else is bad, and because he is so confident in his own intelligence he doesn't second guess himself, and doesn't believe that you should either.
Wednesday, April 9, 2014
It's been a bad month for Anti-vaccers
The Anti-vaccination movement has had a pretty bad past month, and I would feel sorry for them too if it wasn't for the fact that their propaganda (which is mainly based upon a long since dis-proven and fraudulent study by Mr. Andrew Wakefield that was published in 1998 in The Lancet, and formerly retracted in 2010) has scared parents into not getting their kids vaccinated, which has caused numerous deaths and unnecessary illnesses, as well as permanent injuries.
First is the news reports of multiple outbreaks of measles in several communities in the United States and Canada. Many of the people who have gotten infected are young children who were deliberately not vaccinate, the results of which have been directly attributed to causing these outbreaks.
Suffice to say there has been quiet a bit of backlash against the Anti-vaccination movement, which they rightfully have coming to them. Also, since these outbreaks first started making the news there have also been multiple articles published telling parents why they need to ignore the Anti-vaccination movement and vaccinate their children, which I feel is sort of sad because it shows we as a society have to publish numerous articles about why you need to vaccinate your children and make them immune to diseases that could kill them because some parents have been scared into not doing so.
Then there is ofcourse what happened to the cult... I mean group formerly known as the deceptively named Australian Vaccination Network, which is now known as the still kind of deceptively named Australian Vaccination-Skeptics Network.
What happened to the group is that it finally changed it's name after it lost an appeal against the New South Wales Office of Fair Trading, which had ordered the group to change it's name in 2012 due to group's deceptive sounding name. Shortly after the group changed it's named, it also lost it's charity status. Now I admit I'm not sure what that means for such a group under Australian law, but here in the United States that would mean losing what ever tax exemptions that comes from having been recognized as a charity by the government.
Then there's what happened to Jenny McCarthy when she asked on Twitter what one looks for in a potential partner. Now for most talk show hosts/Playboy Playmates/D-list celebrities most people would have given some BS answer. In Jenny's case however most people were very honest. By honest I mean that a lot of people were telling her that they want someone whom vaccinates their children and accepts the science behind why you should (as well as calling her a kid killer).
Finally there's the situation that happened to Chili's Bar & Grill, which was going to give 10% of the money it made from all sales on April 7 to an autism awareness and support "charity". While on the surface this sounds like a great thing for Chili's to do, there was just one little problem with this: The "charity" they were planning to donate to wasn't a autism awareness and support group. It was a Anti-vaccination group called the National Autism Association.
Almost immediately after the announcing that Chili's was going to be donating 10% of it's sales to this group there was a huge public outcry over this, as well as threats of boycotts. Within a few days time the executives at Chili's reversed their decision to donated to the ANN. This decision was praised by people who accept science and have common sense, but was also scorned and ridiculed by stupid people who still think that vaccines are dangerous and cause autism, and that there is some kind of conspiracy by pharmaceutical companies to cover it up. Suffice to say that some of the comments made on Chili's Facebook page is something that psychologists might want to study, but also shows the type of people that supports the Anti-vaccination movement.
So in the end it has been a bad month for the Anti-vaccination movement. They've had so much bad press and so many people are standing up to them, but I for one could not be happier about it!
First is the news reports of multiple outbreaks of measles in several communities in the United States and Canada. Many of the people who have gotten infected are young children who were deliberately not vaccinate, the results of which have been directly attributed to causing these outbreaks.
Suffice to say there has been quiet a bit of backlash against the Anti-vaccination movement, which they rightfully have coming to them. Also, since these outbreaks first started making the news there have also been multiple articles published telling parents why they need to ignore the Anti-vaccination movement and vaccinate their children, which I feel is sort of sad because it shows we as a society have to publish numerous articles about why you need to vaccinate your children and make them immune to diseases that could kill them because some parents have been scared into not doing so.
Then there is ofcourse what happened to the cult... I mean group formerly known as the deceptively named Australian Vaccination Network, which is now known as the still kind of deceptively named Australian Vaccination-Skeptics Network.
What happened to the group is that it finally changed it's name after it lost an appeal against the New South Wales Office of Fair Trading, which had ordered the group to change it's name in 2012 due to group's deceptive sounding name. Shortly after the group changed it's named, it also lost it's charity status. Now I admit I'm not sure what that means for such a group under Australian law, but here in the United States that would mean losing what ever tax exemptions that comes from having been recognized as a charity by the government.
Then there's what happened to Jenny McCarthy when she asked on Twitter what one looks for in a potential partner. Now for most talk show hosts/Playboy Playmates/D-list celebrities most people would have given some BS answer. In Jenny's case however most people were very honest. By honest I mean that a lot of people were telling her that they want someone whom vaccinates their children and accepts the science behind why you should (as well as calling her a kid killer).
Finally there's the situation that happened to Chili's Bar & Grill, which was going to give 10% of the money it made from all sales on April 7 to an autism awareness and support "charity". While on the surface this sounds like a great thing for Chili's to do, there was just one little problem with this: The "charity" they were planning to donate to wasn't a autism awareness and support group. It was a Anti-vaccination group called the National Autism Association.
Almost immediately after the announcing that Chili's was going to be donating 10% of it's sales to this group there was a huge public outcry over this, as well as threats of boycotts. Within a few days time the executives at Chili's reversed their decision to donated to the ANN. This decision was praised by people who accept science and have common sense, but was also scorned and ridiculed by stupid people who still think that vaccines are dangerous and cause autism, and that there is some kind of conspiracy by pharmaceutical companies to cover it up. Suffice to say that some of the comments made on Chili's Facebook page is something that psychologists might want to study, but also shows the type of people that supports the Anti-vaccination movement.
So in the end it has been a bad month for the Anti-vaccination movement. They've had so much bad press and so many people are standing up to them, but I for one could not be happier about it!
Friday, April 4, 2014
10 reasons why AIDS Denialists and the Anti-Vaccination Movement are a lot alike
AIDS Denialism and the Anti-vaccination movement. Two groups that promote what many scientists and and doctors and skeptics alike consider to be the two most dangerous and deadly types of pseudoscience there is. In fact many skeptics have debated which one is more deadly!
Regardless of which one is more deadly, both of groups have an awful lot in common, and I've come up with about ten different things that both groups have in common:
They become very upset when someone questions their claims.
Anti-vaccers and (as I have learned in the past few weeks) AIDS denialists really do not like it when someone questions what they are claiming. It doesn't matter how nice you are to them, or how many facts you present to them, if you question their claims they will become very anger and start throwing around accusations and insults and start spamming people with a bunch of propaganda. This is of course annoying at best, and usually just something that gets them blocked on an internet site, but sometimes they take it to the next level and start doing the next thing on this list...
They use intimidation tactics.
AIDS Denialists and Anti-vaccers just seem to love to use intimidation tactics. Many times these intimidation tactics can be a benign type, like fear mongering and emotional appeal, which is used to sway people who might be on the edge of whether to believe them or not over to their side, or it can be an aggressive type, like death threats, or threats of lawsuits, or harassment, which is used in an attempt to frighten people away from questioning their claims, or to stop skeptics from debunking them.
They claim to do research.
Both AIDS Denialists and Anti-vaccers will often say that they have done their own research into the claims that they are making, and then through this so called research they will claim that they have come to a conclusion, and then proclaim that their conclusion is correct and that all others are incorrect. This is ofcourse if they're not simply claiming that the contradictory information isn't apart of some "big pharma" disinformation propaganda campaign to "slander" Anti-vaccers and AIDS Denialists. And that's another thing...
They think there is some kind of big pharma conspiracy.
Many Anti-vaccers and AIDS Denialists sincerely believe that not only what they believe is true, but they also believe that pharmaceutical companies also know "the truth" and that they're keeping this so called truth hidden from the public so that people will keep buying their products, products that Anti-vaccers and AIDS Denialists believe that no one actually needs and sincerely believes is dangerous.
The reasons why these two groups claim that the pharmaceutical companies are keeping this so called "information" hidden is because if people knew "the truth" (i.e. their truth) that they would no longer buy anything from these pharmaceutical companies and they would go out of business. That, or according to some Anti-vaccers and AIDS Denialists, vaccines and HIV medication is part some kind of NWO/Illuminati plot.
They have no problem censoring people.
Ever make a comment on an Anti-vaccer's or AIDS Denialist's page or comment section for a Youtube video, and said comment either criticizes what they are saying, or debunks what they're saying? Well then you probably know that not many people are going to see it because most administrators of such sites will usually remove such comments pretty quickly... and probably ban you. While this type of censorship is bad they do have every right to do it because they have every right to control the content that is on their webpages.
Some of these people will take the censorship of people who disagree with them to the next level and actually try to get entire webpages and videos from various social media websites removed, either by flagging a webpage or a group or a video as inappropriate or harassing, or even by sending out bogus DMCA takedown notices (which is illegal).
There's no science behind their claims.
While I have no doubt Anti-vaccers and AIDS Denialists sincerely believe in their claims, the fact is that there is no science based evidence behind either of these groups claims. In fact all of the claims made by both of these groups have been disproven by scientific research, which is why no legitimate scientist or doctor takes these two groups claims seriously and try to get other people not to listen to these groups.
They endorse alternative medicine.
Considering the fact that both Anti-vaccers and AIDS Denialist believe in big pharma conspiracy theories it should not be surprising that people in both groups prefer to use and endorse alternative medicine.
Many of the biggest endorsers of the anti-vaccination movement and AIDS denialism are either homeopaths, or naturopaths, or are in some other type of pretend medical field.
Many of the sites that promote these two groups and their beliefs also sell alternative medical products.
They encourage stuff that has legal consequences.
Both groups tend to encourage their followers to do stuff that could lead to a person getting into legal trouble, such as getting sued, being imprisoned, or even having their children taken away.
For Anti-vaccers the legal consequences could result from falsifying vaccination records inorder to get their child in school, to getting sued by the parent of a child that got sick from their child due to a disease that was preventable through vaccination.
For AIDS Denialists, especially for ones that have HIV, the legal consequences could result in them being imprisoned if they have sex with someone and they don't disclose their HIV positive status with simply because they don't believe that HIV exist, or that it causes AIDS.
Their beliefs have lead to deaths.
It is an undeniable fact that the claims from both of these groups have lead to numerous deaths, all of which could have been prevented.
With the AIDS Denialists the deaths are of people with HIV infections who decided not to take any medication that would suppress HIV because they believe that HIV either doesn't exist, or it doesn't cause AIDS. Sometimes it's not just them that die, it's also their children if their children had contracted HIV from their mother while their mother was pregnant with them, and they refuse to let their children have any medication that would suppress HIV.
With Anti-vaccers the deaths come from either their children after they get infect by a vaccine preventable disease and just could not fight it off, or the deaths come from other children that their child infects that were not vaccinated because they were either to young, or couldn't get vaccinated for various medical reasons.
They both act like cults.
Both the Anti-vaccination movement and AIDS Denialists engage in behavior that some would describe as being very cultish like. For example:
They don't like people questioning them. They have enemies lists. They completely disregard what facts are brought before them. They can't stand being question. They put out articles that are blatantly false. They have no regard for rules or laws. And they try to destroy people that take them on.
Sounds like a lot like a cult, and I bet many people would agree with me too.
Regardless of which one is more deadly, both of groups have an awful lot in common, and I've come up with about ten different things that both groups have in common:
They become very upset when someone questions their claims.
Anti-vaccers and (as I have learned in the past few weeks) AIDS denialists really do not like it when someone questions what they are claiming. It doesn't matter how nice you are to them, or how many facts you present to them, if you question their claims they will become very anger and start throwing around accusations and insults and start spamming people with a bunch of propaganda. This is of course annoying at best, and usually just something that gets them blocked on an internet site, but sometimes they take it to the next level and start doing the next thing on this list...
They use intimidation tactics.
AIDS Denialists and Anti-vaccers just seem to love to use intimidation tactics. Many times these intimidation tactics can be a benign type, like fear mongering and emotional appeal, which is used to sway people who might be on the edge of whether to believe them or not over to their side, or it can be an aggressive type, like death threats, or threats of lawsuits, or harassment, which is used in an attempt to frighten people away from questioning their claims, or to stop skeptics from debunking them.
They claim to do research.
Both AIDS Denialists and Anti-vaccers will often say that they have done their own research into the claims that they are making, and then through this so called research they will claim that they have come to a conclusion, and then proclaim that their conclusion is correct and that all others are incorrect. This is ofcourse if they're not simply claiming that the contradictory information isn't apart of some "big pharma" disinformation propaganda campaign to "slander" Anti-vaccers and AIDS Denialists. And that's another thing...
They think there is some kind of big pharma conspiracy.
Many Anti-vaccers and AIDS Denialists sincerely believe that not only what they believe is true, but they also believe that pharmaceutical companies also know "the truth" and that they're keeping this so called truth hidden from the public so that people will keep buying their products, products that Anti-vaccers and AIDS Denialists believe that no one actually needs and sincerely believes is dangerous.
The reasons why these two groups claim that the pharmaceutical companies are keeping this so called "information" hidden is because if people knew "the truth" (i.e. their truth) that they would no longer buy anything from these pharmaceutical companies and they would go out of business. That, or according to some Anti-vaccers and AIDS Denialists, vaccines and HIV medication is part some kind of NWO/Illuminati plot.
They have no problem censoring people.
Ever make a comment on an Anti-vaccer's or AIDS Denialist's page or comment section for a Youtube video, and said comment either criticizes what they are saying, or debunks what they're saying? Well then you probably know that not many people are going to see it because most administrators of such sites will usually remove such comments pretty quickly... and probably ban you. While this type of censorship is bad they do have every right to do it because they have every right to control the content that is on their webpages.
Some of these people will take the censorship of people who disagree with them to the next level and actually try to get entire webpages and videos from various social media websites removed, either by flagging a webpage or a group or a video as inappropriate or harassing, or even by sending out bogus DMCA takedown notices (which is illegal).
There's no science behind their claims.
While I have no doubt Anti-vaccers and AIDS Denialists sincerely believe in their claims, the fact is that there is no science based evidence behind either of these groups claims. In fact all of the claims made by both of these groups have been disproven by scientific research, which is why no legitimate scientist or doctor takes these two groups claims seriously and try to get other people not to listen to these groups.
They endorse alternative medicine.
Considering the fact that both Anti-vaccers and AIDS Denialist believe in big pharma conspiracy theories it should not be surprising that people in both groups prefer to use and endorse alternative medicine.
Many of the biggest endorsers of the anti-vaccination movement and AIDS denialism are either homeopaths, or naturopaths, or are in some other type of pretend medical field.
Many of the sites that promote these two groups and their beliefs also sell alternative medical products.
They encourage stuff that has legal consequences.
Both groups tend to encourage their followers to do stuff that could lead to a person getting into legal trouble, such as getting sued, being imprisoned, or even having their children taken away.
For Anti-vaccers the legal consequences could result from falsifying vaccination records inorder to get their child in school, to getting sued by the parent of a child that got sick from their child due to a disease that was preventable through vaccination.
For AIDS Denialists, especially for ones that have HIV, the legal consequences could result in them being imprisoned if they have sex with someone and they don't disclose their HIV positive status with simply because they don't believe that HIV exist, or that it causes AIDS.
Their beliefs have lead to deaths.
It is an undeniable fact that the claims from both of these groups have lead to numerous deaths, all of which could have been prevented.
With the AIDS Denialists the deaths are of people with HIV infections who decided not to take any medication that would suppress HIV because they believe that HIV either doesn't exist, or it doesn't cause AIDS. Sometimes it's not just them that die, it's also their children if their children had contracted HIV from their mother while their mother was pregnant with them, and they refuse to let their children have any medication that would suppress HIV.
With Anti-vaccers the deaths come from either their children after they get infect by a vaccine preventable disease and just could not fight it off, or the deaths come from other children that their child infects that were not vaccinated because they were either to young, or couldn't get vaccinated for various medical reasons.
They both act like cults.
Both the Anti-vaccination movement and AIDS Denialists engage in behavior that some would describe as being very cultish like. For example:
They don't like people questioning them. They have enemies lists. They completely disregard what facts are brought before them. They can't stand being question. They put out articles that are blatantly false. They have no regard for rules or laws. And they try to destroy people that take them on.
Sounds like a lot like a cult, and I bet many people would agree with me too.
Sunday, February 2, 2014
5 Things I've noticed about... Alternative Cancer Cures
Alternative cancer cures.
These so called cures have been around with us for as long as science based cancer treatments have been around with us. Infact some of them have been around even longer than that.
These so called cures, while different, also have many things in common, which I have narrowed down to five different things.
So here are five things I've noticed about alternative cancer cures:
5. There's a lot of them.
One of the biggest things that I've noticed about alternative cancer cures is that there are a lot of different types of "cures" floating around the internet and alternative medicine communities, and that there seems to be a new one that comes out every few weeks.
I've seen claims that balancing your ph levels, vitamins, organic foods, "detoxing" your body of chemicals, breathing in pure oxygen, and soursop can cure cancer, and in ways and speeds that would make conventional treatments obsolete.
The most recent claims I've seen concern cannabis oil. Along with doing all sorts of other stuff, the rumors spreading around the internet is that either cannabis oil can cure or atleast stop the growth of cancer cells.
While there are a lot of different alternative medical treatments that are claimed to cure cancer, there are a few things that they all have in common, such as the fact that...
4. Many of the claims are exaggerated and dubious.
Of all the alternative cancer cures that I have seen floating around the internet they all just sound blatantly exaggerated, and when I do some research into these claims I find out that they are often times full of half truths, or are outright false. Examples of this would be Soursop which is claimed to be 10,000 times more effective than chemo (both exaggerated and false), and vitamins are often claimed to kill cancer cells because it can kill them in a petri dish (that doesn't mean it can kill them in the human body).
Many people who promote these so called alternative cancer cures also claim that there is a "conspiracy" by "big pharma" to suppress these so called "cures" (which they have done a terrible job at) and is the reason why doctors won't even mention these alternative "cures". This is ofcourse made up nonsense and BS conspiracy theories. The real reason why doctors don't recommend alternative cancer cures is because...
3. They don't work and are dangerous.
As the old saying goes "You know what they call an alternative medicine that works? Medicine."
The fact is that these so called alternative cancer cures don't work. They have been tested in scientific laboratories, and have been shown not to work and do nothing to reduce or stop the spread of cancer cells. The only thing that has been shown when a person purely uses alternative cancer cures is that a person will die of cancer just as fast as if they had used no cancer treatments at all. This is why no legitimate medical doctor would ever recommend any alternative cancer cures.
Worst yet is that some of these cancer cures are actually harmful. Soursop for instance has neurotoxins in it that can cause a person to develop symptoms similar to Parkinson's disease, and cansema, another so called alternative cancer cure is corrosive and destroys your skin. There are also many different herbs that are floating around that are said to cure cancer, but in reality are poisonous and can kill you.
Ofcourse no one who believes that alternative cancer cures work would know this, nor would some of them really care primarily due to the "statistics" that the profiteers... I mean promoters of alternative cancer cures often times use. And speaking of those statistics...
2. The statistics alternative cancer cure promoters use are exaggerated and flawed.
Many times accompanying articles about alternative cancer cures (especially on websites that promote these "cures") and are some kind of statistics and information about how many people have been cured of cancer by taking whatever it is they are promoting. What many of these so called statistics and information may or may not tell you is how many of those people were using conventional cancer treatments during, or before, or after they took the alternative cancer cures. To most people this would create a cross contamination in the data as it could be argued that it is just as likely (much more likely actually) that the conventional cancer treatments are what cured a person of cancer and not the alternative cancer treatments.
Now when you remove all the people who admit they used conventional cancer treatments and only include those that claim to have purely used alternative cancer cures, the number of people who believe that they successfully rid themselves of cancer is shockingly small, and can be explained as either the body healing itself (it's rare, but it does happen) or the person was given a false diagnosis (which is why a second diagnosis is always needed after a first positive diagnosis is made inorder to confirm if a person has cancer), or that some of the people questioned could be outright lying and actually did have conventional cancer treatments, or have never been diagnosed with cancer, they just claimed they had it.
What these statistics do not tell you is how many people actually died while using these alternative cancer cures, either indirectly as a result of foregoing conventional cancer treatments, or directly as a result of being poisoned by some of these "cures".
Also another thing that the promoters of alternative cancer cures tend to do...
1. The promoters of alternative cancer cures love to talk about the negatives of conventional cancer treatments, but never the positives.
As a way to help promote alternative cancer cures the promoters of these so called cures love to talk about all of the bad stuff about conventional cancer cures, primarily how harsh some of it can be, and how expensive it can be, and that sometimes conventional treatments do not work. While this is true it's still fear mongering that's done inorder to scare people into foregoing conventional cancer treatments and use the alternative ones.
What's almost never mentioned is how conventional cancer treatments have consistently increased the life expectancy and survivability of people who were diagnosed with cancer for over the past 50 years, and that there are new treatments for cancer that are based off of science based research that are coming out all the time. Infact I know a person who recently was completely cured of a type of cancer that ten years would have meant a death sentence, and this is all thanks to science based medicine. His story is just one of millions of examples of how science based cancer treatments have prolonged peoples lives, or rid people of cancer!
Ofcourse you'll never hear that from a person whom promotes the non-science based "cures".
These so called cures have been around with us for as long as science based cancer treatments have been around with us. Infact some of them have been around even longer than that.
These so called cures, while different, also have many things in common, which I have narrowed down to five different things.
So here are five things I've noticed about alternative cancer cures:
5. There's a lot of them.
One of the biggest things that I've noticed about alternative cancer cures is that there are a lot of different types of "cures" floating around the internet and alternative medicine communities, and that there seems to be a new one that comes out every few weeks.
I've seen claims that balancing your ph levels, vitamins, organic foods, "detoxing" your body of chemicals, breathing in pure oxygen, and soursop can cure cancer, and in ways and speeds that would make conventional treatments obsolete.
The most recent claims I've seen concern cannabis oil. Along with doing all sorts of other stuff, the rumors spreading around the internet is that either cannabis oil can cure or atleast stop the growth of cancer cells.
While there are a lot of different alternative medical treatments that are claimed to cure cancer, there are a few things that they all have in common, such as the fact that...
4. Many of the claims are exaggerated and dubious.
Of all the alternative cancer cures that I have seen floating around the internet they all just sound blatantly exaggerated, and when I do some research into these claims I find out that they are often times full of half truths, or are outright false. Examples of this would be Soursop which is claimed to be 10,000 times more effective than chemo (both exaggerated and false), and vitamins are often claimed to kill cancer cells because it can kill them in a petri dish (that doesn't mean it can kill them in the human body).
Many people who promote these so called alternative cancer cures also claim that there is a "conspiracy" by "big pharma" to suppress these so called "cures" (which they have done a terrible job at) and is the reason why doctors won't even mention these alternative "cures". This is ofcourse made up nonsense and BS conspiracy theories. The real reason why doctors don't recommend alternative cancer cures is because...
3. They don't work and are dangerous.
As the old saying goes "You know what they call an alternative medicine that works? Medicine."
The fact is that these so called alternative cancer cures don't work. They have been tested in scientific laboratories, and have been shown not to work and do nothing to reduce or stop the spread of cancer cells. The only thing that has been shown when a person purely uses alternative cancer cures is that a person will die of cancer just as fast as if they had used no cancer treatments at all. This is why no legitimate medical doctor would ever recommend any alternative cancer cures.
Worst yet is that some of these cancer cures are actually harmful. Soursop for instance has neurotoxins in it that can cause a person to develop symptoms similar to Parkinson's disease, and cansema, another so called alternative cancer cure is corrosive and destroys your skin. There are also many different herbs that are floating around that are said to cure cancer, but in reality are poisonous and can kill you.
Ofcourse no one who believes that alternative cancer cures work would know this, nor would some of them really care primarily due to the "statistics" that the profiteers... I mean promoters of alternative cancer cures often times use. And speaking of those statistics...
2. The statistics alternative cancer cure promoters use are exaggerated and flawed.
Many times accompanying articles about alternative cancer cures (especially on websites that promote these "cures") and are some kind of statistics and information about how many people have been cured of cancer by taking whatever it is they are promoting. What many of these so called statistics and information may or may not tell you is how many of those people were using conventional cancer treatments during, or before, or after they took the alternative cancer cures. To most people this would create a cross contamination in the data as it could be argued that it is just as likely (much more likely actually) that the conventional cancer treatments are what cured a person of cancer and not the alternative cancer treatments.
Now when you remove all the people who admit they used conventional cancer treatments and only include those that claim to have purely used alternative cancer cures, the number of people who believe that they successfully rid themselves of cancer is shockingly small, and can be explained as either the body healing itself (it's rare, but it does happen) or the person was given a false diagnosis (which is why a second diagnosis is always needed after a first positive diagnosis is made inorder to confirm if a person has cancer), or that some of the people questioned could be outright lying and actually did have conventional cancer treatments, or have never been diagnosed with cancer, they just claimed they had it.
What these statistics do not tell you is how many people actually died while using these alternative cancer cures, either indirectly as a result of foregoing conventional cancer treatments, or directly as a result of being poisoned by some of these "cures".
Also another thing that the promoters of alternative cancer cures tend to do...
1. The promoters of alternative cancer cures love to talk about the negatives of conventional cancer treatments, but never the positives.
As a way to help promote alternative cancer cures the promoters of these so called cures love to talk about all of the bad stuff about conventional cancer cures, primarily how harsh some of it can be, and how expensive it can be, and that sometimes conventional treatments do not work. While this is true it's still fear mongering that's done inorder to scare people into foregoing conventional cancer treatments and use the alternative ones.
What's almost never mentioned is how conventional cancer treatments have consistently increased the life expectancy and survivability of people who were diagnosed with cancer for over the past 50 years, and that there are new treatments for cancer that are based off of science based research that are coming out all the time. Infact I know a person who recently was completely cured of a type of cancer that ten years would have meant a death sentence, and this is all thanks to science based medicine. His story is just one of millions of examples of how science based cancer treatments have prolonged peoples lives, or rid people of cancer!
Ofcourse you'll never hear that from a person whom promotes the non-science based "cures".
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
5 Things I've noticed about... AIDS Denialism
AIDS Denialism.
Despite all the we know about HIV and AIDS from the many years of research into it in hopes of one day finding a cure for it, there are still people out there who do not believe that HIV causes AIDS, or that it even exists.
There are a lot of things I have noticed about AIDS Denialism (and none of them are are positive, pun not intended) but I have narrowed it down to five different things.
So here are five things I've noticed about AIDS Denialism:
5. It's a very dangerous and deadly form of Pseudoscience/Alternative medicine.
Of all the different types of pseudoscience and alternative medicine out there, AIDS denialism is one of the most deadly types of pseudoscience and alternative medicine there is.
HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, is a very deadly disease, and if left untreated it can kill someone within a few years of being infected (this does vary from person to person), and will kill 100% of the time.
AIDS denialists deny that AIDS even exists, or that at least HIV doesn't cause AIDS, and encourage people not to take any medication after they've been diagnosed with HIV.
This is why AIDS denialism is considered to be so deadly. Because they are denying that HIV is dangerous, and that AIDS doesn't even exist, AIDS denialists are basically encouraging those who have been infected to shorten their lives.
In fact many people consider AIDS denialism to be the second most dangerous form of alternative medicine and pseudoscience there is. Only the anti-vaccination movement is considered to be more dangerous, and that's only because a lot of the diseases that vaccines are meant to prevent are a lot easier to get than HIV (although many of the diseases that are prevented via vaccines are usually not as deadly as HIV is).
4. It denies over three decades worth of research into HIV.
We know a lot about HIV and AIDS. We know how it's transmitted from one person to another. We know how easy it is to prevent getting it. We know the average life expectancy of a person after they have contracted HIV, and we have known all of this for almost 30 years now.
Also, through the decades of scientific and medical research, we have developed medicines that can drastically extend the life expectancy of a person who has HIV by years, even decades, and even reduce the chance of a pregnant woman with HIV transmitting the virus to her unborn child to almost 0%. There are people who are alive today who were diagnosed with HIV back in the 1990's who wouldn't be alive today without all of this research (which has gone into the billions of dollars worth).
AIDS denialist just look at all of the research and all that we know about HIV and AIDS and says nope, it's all fake...
3. It's self destructive.
It shouldn't be surprising to to many people but many AIDS denialists have also been diagnosed with HIV, and also not surprising many of them have died as a result of complications due to AIDS. A recent example of this would be former professional boxer Tommy Morrison, whom's death was clearly a result of complications due to AIDS (although AIDS denialists will say otherwise).
Another example of AIDS denialists self destructiveness would be the magazine Continuum, which was run by AIDS denialists who had also all been diagnosed with HIV. The magazine shutdown in early 2001 due to all of the magazine's editors dying of AIDS...
To put it to a point, if you have HIV, but don't believe it's going to kill you, you're sentencing yourself to an early grave. And not only is it self destructive, also...
2. It encourages dangerous behavior.
Besides just being self destructive and outright deadly, AIDS denialism also encourages dangerous behavior as well, either indirectly, or directly.
AIDS denialism indirectly encourages dangerous behavior by making it seem okay for a person whom has HIV to continue to engage in whatever lifestyle that they were engaged in that caused them to contract HIV in the first place. Or they may feel that it is okay to continue to have unprotected sex because if they believe that HIV isn't deadly then there isn't any reason for them in their minds to use protection, or even tell a sex partner that they have HIV.
AIDS denialism also directly encourages dangerous behavior by making it appear that because HIV is allegedly not deadly that people don't need to take any drugs that can hold HIV at bay, or even get tested for HIV if you believe you may have contracted it. Infact many AIDS denialists say that you shouldn't take any of the drugs that hold HIV at bay, and that the drugs are what make you sick, and that there is some kind of conspiracy by pharmaceutical companies to keep the "truth" about HIV hidden so that they can keep selling these drugs to people with HIV.
1. AIDS denialists use one small fact about HIV to try to back up there claims.
While everything that AIDS denialists claim have been completely discredited and debunked for years now, they do use one small fact about HIV that AIDS denialist do use that is actually true: HIV in itself is not a deadly disease and has never directly killed someone. What they tend to ignore is that HIV is an indirectly deadly disease because it destroys a person's immune system and causes other diseases which would normally not do anything to someone to kill that person.
This is somewhat similar to person dying in a car wreck. While the injuries they may have gotten from the car wreck is what ultimately killed them, the car wreak itself is what caused the injuries that killed that person. Same thing with HIV. While other diseases in a person that has HIV were the actual cause of a person's death, HIV is the cause of that person's immune system being destroyed which allowed those viruses to kill that person. This is why when someone dies in a car wreck, or dies as a result of HIV, it's not listed as cause of death being due to a car wreck or HIV, but instead it is listed as being whatever injury or disease as being the directed cause of what killed that person.
Just because HIV isn't listed as a direct cause of death doesn't mean that it isn't the cause of someone's death.
Despite all the we know about HIV and AIDS from the many years of research into it in hopes of one day finding a cure for it, there are still people out there who do not believe that HIV causes AIDS, or that it even exists.
There are a lot of things I have noticed about AIDS Denialism (and none of them are are positive, pun not intended) but I have narrowed it down to five different things.
So here are five things I've noticed about AIDS Denialism:
5. It's a very dangerous and deadly form of Pseudoscience/Alternative medicine.
Of all the different types of pseudoscience and alternative medicine out there, AIDS denialism is one of the most deadly types of pseudoscience and alternative medicine there is.
HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, is a very deadly disease, and if left untreated it can kill someone within a few years of being infected (this does vary from person to person), and will kill 100% of the time.
AIDS denialists deny that AIDS even exists, or that at least HIV doesn't cause AIDS, and encourage people not to take any medication after they've been diagnosed with HIV.
This is why AIDS denialism is considered to be so deadly. Because they are denying that HIV is dangerous, and that AIDS doesn't even exist, AIDS denialists are basically encouraging those who have been infected to shorten their lives.
In fact many people consider AIDS denialism to be the second most dangerous form of alternative medicine and pseudoscience there is. Only the anti-vaccination movement is considered to be more dangerous, and that's only because a lot of the diseases that vaccines are meant to prevent are a lot easier to get than HIV (although many of the diseases that are prevented via vaccines are usually not as deadly as HIV is).
4. It denies over three decades worth of research into HIV.
We know a lot about HIV and AIDS. We know how it's transmitted from one person to another. We know how easy it is to prevent getting it. We know the average life expectancy of a person after they have contracted HIV, and we have known all of this for almost 30 years now.
Also, through the decades of scientific and medical research, we have developed medicines that can drastically extend the life expectancy of a person who has HIV by years, even decades, and even reduce the chance of a pregnant woman with HIV transmitting the virus to her unborn child to almost 0%. There are people who are alive today who were diagnosed with HIV back in the 1990's who wouldn't be alive today without all of this research (which has gone into the billions of dollars worth).
AIDS denialist just look at all of the research and all that we know about HIV and AIDS and says nope, it's all fake...
3. It's self destructive.
It shouldn't be surprising to to many people but many AIDS denialists have also been diagnosed with HIV, and also not surprising many of them have died as a result of complications due to AIDS. A recent example of this would be former professional boxer Tommy Morrison, whom's death was clearly a result of complications due to AIDS (although AIDS denialists will say otherwise).
Another example of AIDS denialists self destructiveness would be the magazine Continuum, which was run by AIDS denialists who had also all been diagnosed with HIV. The magazine shutdown in early 2001 due to all of the magazine's editors dying of AIDS...
To put it to a point, if you have HIV, but don't believe it's going to kill you, you're sentencing yourself to an early grave. And not only is it self destructive, also...
2. It encourages dangerous behavior.
Besides just being self destructive and outright deadly, AIDS denialism also encourages dangerous behavior as well, either indirectly, or directly.
AIDS denialism indirectly encourages dangerous behavior by making it seem okay for a person whom has HIV to continue to engage in whatever lifestyle that they were engaged in that caused them to contract HIV in the first place. Or they may feel that it is okay to continue to have unprotected sex because if they believe that HIV isn't deadly then there isn't any reason for them in their minds to use protection, or even tell a sex partner that they have HIV.
AIDS denialism also directly encourages dangerous behavior by making it appear that because HIV is allegedly not deadly that people don't need to take any drugs that can hold HIV at bay, or even get tested for HIV if you believe you may have contracted it. Infact many AIDS denialists say that you shouldn't take any of the drugs that hold HIV at bay, and that the drugs are what make you sick, and that there is some kind of conspiracy by pharmaceutical companies to keep the "truth" about HIV hidden so that they can keep selling these drugs to people with HIV.
1. AIDS denialists use one small fact about HIV to try to back up there claims.
While everything that AIDS denialists claim have been completely discredited and debunked for years now, they do use one small fact about HIV that AIDS denialist do use that is actually true: HIV in itself is not a deadly disease and has never directly killed someone. What they tend to ignore is that HIV is an indirectly deadly disease because it destroys a person's immune system and causes other diseases which would normally not do anything to someone to kill that person.
This is somewhat similar to person dying in a car wreck. While the injuries they may have gotten from the car wreck is what ultimately killed them, the car wreak itself is what caused the injuries that killed that person. Same thing with HIV. While other diseases in a person that has HIV were the actual cause of a person's death, HIV is the cause of that person's immune system being destroyed which allowed those viruses to kill that person. This is why when someone dies in a car wreck, or dies as a result of HIV, it's not listed as cause of death being due to a car wreck or HIV, but instead it is listed as being whatever injury or disease as being the directed cause of what killed that person.
Just because HIV isn't listed as a direct cause of death doesn't mean that it isn't the cause of someone's death.
Sunday, November 10, 2013
9 Reasons why people use Alternative Medicine
Why do some people continue to used alternative medicine?
Despite all the information there is about alternative medicine and how not only does it not work, but that infact it can even be harmful, people still use it and believe that it really does work.
So why is it that people still use alternative medicine? Well, I've been thinking about that, and I've come up with quite a few reasons why:
Desperation
Science based medicine is an incredible thing and can cure many diseases and fix a lot of things that can go wrong with the human body, but unfortunately it can't cure every disease, or fix everything that goes wrong with our bodies (not yet atleast). So when science based medicine can't fix or cure what ever is wrong with us (or atleast not doing so in a way that is fast enough for us) some people, even rational people, might become desperate enough to use alternative medicine.
This sort of situation especially happens when someone has a terminal disease and they are told by their doctor that there is nothing they can do to cure what ever it is that is killing them. Some people will not accept this and will seek out anything that is claimed to be able to cure them (even if all the evidence says otherwise).
They think it's cheaper
Because alternative medicine isn't manufactured by the pharmaceutical companies (who are for profit businesses) it is assumed by some people that alternative medicine must be cheaper than science based medicine because they believe that the people who are manufacturing these alternative medical products are not doing it for a profit, plus when a person is told about a product that is suppose to be cheaper and work better than the conventional product, people tend to buy the supposedly cheaper product.
Now if you seriously believe that alternative medicine is cheaper than science based medicine, and that people who make these alternative medical products are not doing so for a profit, then I know a Nigerian prince that wants to give you $15,000,000.
A friend told them it works
Probably the best form of advertising there is is word of mouth. You don't do have to pay for anything, and people tend to trust the opinion of a friend or family member over a creative ad in a newspaper or a TV commercial. Same thing holds true with alternative medicine.
Lets say you've been sick for a while and you have been taking some medicine for what ever has been ailing you, but so far it has had little to no affect. You tell a friend or a family member about your health issues and they might recommend that you take some herbs, or to go see this "doctor" that they recommend (who turns out to be an alternative medicine practitioner and not a real doctor) because they claim that it helped them, or it helped someone they know. Because you trust the person whom is recommending this "doctor" or this product, you might be more willing to see this "doctor" or try this product than you would if some stranger had told you.
Science based medicine can be harsh
Science based medicine (or modern medicine, or real medicine as some people like to call it) is a great thing. It has cured a lot of stuff, and has extended our average life expectancy by years, but it can also be pretty harsh at times as well. Because of this some people might either choose to stop using a science based medical treatment because they feel that it has become to harsh on them and that they believe that it might kill them if they continue to use, and so they decided to use alternative medicine instead because they believe it will help them without any side effects, or they might already know (or atleast believe) that the medical treatment that they've been recommend that they do could or will be harsh on them, and they decide to forgo it and use alternative medicine instead.
It goes with their beliefs
Whether is be religious, or cultural, or even personal, our beliefs in whatever form it may be shapes our thinking and what we do and what we trust, and if there is something about an alternative medicine that appeals to a person's beliefs, or if there is something about science based medicine that person considers taboo, the person might be far more willing to use alternative medicine even when it clearly doesn't work and that science based medicine clearly does work.
They believe that science based medicine is dangerous
Some people might chose to use alternative medicine rather than science based medicine not simply because they believe it is better than science based medicine, but because they believe that science based medicine is actually dangerous.
It shouldn't be to surprising that many supporters of alternative medicine also tend to be conspiracy theorists who believe that pharmaceutical companies are greedy and are only putting out products to make money without care of whether or not a product is dangerous, or intentionally putting out a product that will make us sick so that they can make more money off of us that way, or are part of some "New World Order" and are putting out dangerous products as a way to either control us or slowly kill us.
It should also not be surprising that many people who believe such conspiracy theories also believe that pharmaceutical companies are also trying to suppress information about alternative medicine, and are even going so far as to try to outlaw alternative medicine. Because of this belief it can make many people believe that alternative medicine is not only the right choice, but the only choice.
They used alternative medicine before and believed that it worked
One of the main reasons why some people use alternative medicine is because they already used it before for something else and as far as they are concerned it worked.
Now the two biggest reasons why someone might think that alternative medicine actually works after they already used it and it appeared to cure what ever was ailing them is either because they took it along with the real science based medicine and they simply assumed that the alternative medicine either helped cure them, or was what really cured them. Or they might not have used any science based medicine and that their body simply healed itself, but because that they used alternative medicine they assume that it was the alternative medicine that healed them and not their own bodies.
Because some people who have taken alternative medicine and believe that it really did work they might forgo using any science based medicine and use only alternative medicine, or atleast continue to use it along with science based medicine.
They read information about it that makes them think it works
There are a lot of websites and books out there about alternative medicine and it's alleged "benefits". Many of these books and websites contain "information" mostly in the form of positive stories about alternative medicine and how it's "helped" certain people by telling you their stories of how it's supposedly cured them while at the the same time bad mouthing science based medicine by claiming it wasn't working, or that it was killing the person, or by putting in information that makes science based medicine look harmful, or just insert a bunch of pharmaceutical industry conspiracy theories.
Sometimes these books and websites will take it a step further and have a real doctor claim that some kind of alternative medicine really works, or perhaps the book was written by a real doctor, or the website is run by a real doctor, and because something is written or run by a real doctor, it might cause some people to believe that there is something to this alternative medicine.
They got scammed into it.
Despite all that we've learned from snake oil salesmen of the 19th century, people still get scammed by con-artists and quacks who get people to buy useless products because they have been lead to believe that said product works and will cure what ever is ailing them when all it is is really junk.
Be either through an ad on the internet, or directly from the mouth of the person selling what ever they are selling, people to this day still get suckered into buying stuff that does not work. The fact that alternative medicine even exists today and that there are companies that manufacture and make billions off of this stuff is proof of that.
Despite all the information there is about alternative medicine and how not only does it not work, but that infact it can even be harmful, people still use it and believe that it really does work.
So why is it that people still use alternative medicine? Well, I've been thinking about that, and I've come up with quite a few reasons why:
Desperation
Science based medicine is an incredible thing and can cure many diseases and fix a lot of things that can go wrong with the human body, but unfortunately it can't cure every disease, or fix everything that goes wrong with our bodies (not yet atleast). So when science based medicine can't fix or cure what ever is wrong with us (or atleast not doing so in a way that is fast enough for us) some people, even rational people, might become desperate enough to use alternative medicine.
This sort of situation especially happens when someone has a terminal disease and they are told by their doctor that there is nothing they can do to cure what ever it is that is killing them. Some people will not accept this and will seek out anything that is claimed to be able to cure them (even if all the evidence says otherwise).
They think it's cheaper
Because alternative medicine isn't manufactured by the pharmaceutical companies (who are for profit businesses) it is assumed by some people that alternative medicine must be cheaper than science based medicine because they believe that the people who are manufacturing these alternative medical products are not doing it for a profit, plus when a person is told about a product that is suppose to be cheaper and work better than the conventional product, people tend to buy the supposedly cheaper product.
Now if you seriously believe that alternative medicine is cheaper than science based medicine, and that people who make these alternative medical products are not doing so for a profit, then I know a Nigerian prince that wants to give you $15,000,000.
A friend told them it works
Probably the best form of advertising there is is word of mouth. You don't do have to pay for anything, and people tend to trust the opinion of a friend or family member over a creative ad in a newspaper or a TV commercial. Same thing holds true with alternative medicine.
Lets say you've been sick for a while and you have been taking some medicine for what ever has been ailing you, but so far it has had little to no affect. You tell a friend or a family member about your health issues and they might recommend that you take some herbs, or to go see this "doctor" that they recommend (who turns out to be an alternative medicine practitioner and not a real doctor) because they claim that it helped them, or it helped someone they know. Because you trust the person whom is recommending this "doctor" or this product, you might be more willing to see this "doctor" or try this product than you would if some stranger had told you.
Science based medicine can be harsh
Science based medicine (or modern medicine, or real medicine as some people like to call it) is a great thing. It has cured a lot of stuff, and has extended our average life expectancy by years, but it can also be pretty harsh at times as well. Because of this some people might either choose to stop using a science based medical treatment because they feel that it has become to harsh on them and that they believe that it might kill them if they continue to use, and so they decided to use alternative medicine instead because they believe it will help them without any side effects, or they might already know (or atleast believe) that the medical treatment that they've been recommend that they do could or will be harsh on them, and they decide to forgo it and use alternative medicine instead.
It goes with their beliefs
Whether is be religious, or cultural, or even personal, our beliefs in whatever form it may be shapes our thinking and what we do and what we trust, and if there is something about an alternative medicine that appeals to a person's beliefs, or if there is something about science based medicine that person considers taboo, the person might be far more willing to use alternative medicine even when it clearly doesn't work and that science based medicine clearly does work.
They believe that science based medicine is dangerous
Some people might chose to use alternative medicine rather than science based medicine not simply because they believe it is better than science based medicine, but because they believe that science based medicine is actually dangerous.
It shouldn't be to surprising that many supporters of alternative medicine also tend to be conspiracy theorists who believe that pharmaceutical companies are greedy and are only putting out products to make money without care of whether or not a product is dangerous, or intentionally putting out a product that will make us sick so that they can make more money off of us that way, or are part of some "New World Order" and are putting out dangerous products as a way to either control us or slowly kill us.
It should also not be surprising that many people who believe such conspiracy theories also believe that pharmaceutical companies are also trying to suppress information about alternative medicine, and are even going so far as to try to outlaw alternative medicine. Because of this belief it can make many people believe that alternative medicine is not only the right choice, but the only choice.
They used alternative medicine before and believed that it worked
One of the main reasons why some people use alternative medicine is because they already used it before for something else and as far as they are concerned it worked.
Now the two biggest reasons why someone might think that alternative medicine actually works after they already used it and it appeared to cure what ever was ailing them is either because they took it along with the real science based medicine and they simply assumed that the alternative medicine either helped cure them, or was what really cured them. Or they might not have used any science based medicine and that their body simply healed itself, but because that they used alternative medicine they assume that it was the alternative medicine that healed them and not their own bodies.
Because some people who have taken alternative medicine and believe that it really did work they might forgo using any science based medicine and use only alternative medicine, or atleast continue to use it along with science based medicine.
They read information about it that makes them think it works
There are a lot of websites and books out there about alternative medicine and it's alleged "benefits". Many of these books and websites contain "information" mostly in the form of positive stories about alternative medicine and how it's "helped" certain people by telling you their stories of how it's supposedly cured them while at the the same time bad mouthing science based medicine by claiming it wasn't working, or that it was killing the person, or by putting in information that makes science based medicine look harmful, or just insert a bunch of pharmaceutical industry conspiracy theories.
Sometimes these books and websites will take it a step further and have a real doctor claim that some kind of alternative medicine really works, or perhaps the book was written by a real doctor, or the website is run by a real doctor, and because something is written or run by a real doctor, it might cause some people to believe that there is something to this alternative medicine.
They got scammed into it.
Despite all that we've learned from snake oil salesmen of the 19th century, people still get scammed by con-artists and quacks who get people to buy useless products because they have been lead to believe that said product works and will cure what ever is ailing them when all it is is really junk.
Be either through an ad on the internet, or directly from the mouth of the person selling what ever they are selling, people to this day still get suckered into buying stuff that does not work. The fact that alternative medicine even exists today and that there are companies that manufacture and make billions off of this stuff is proof of that.
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