Posted by JLx on September 23, 2003, at 9:02:35
In reply to Re: Yeah what is the pig pills story anyway???, posted by CamW. on September 23, 2003, at 3:18:06
I read some of the material on your links with great interest. My personal approach is to view everything everyone says with much skepticism. Who is behind the HealthWatcher site, for instance? Not only are they selling an e-book, but I notice they are soliciting people for a class action suit against TrueHope with the following reference to "our" lawyers:
"Those of you who have been sold a bill of goods, who have spent hundreds, perhaps thousands of dollars on this crazy scheme now have a chance to provide input to our attorneys in a class action lawsuit." http://www.healthwatcher.net/Quackerywatch/Synergy/synergy-lawsuit.html
I notice here too, http://www.psycheducation.org/depression/meds/antiTH.htm that in a response to this psychiatrist, one of the founders of TrueHope accuses Marvin Ross -- the crusading-against-TrueHope journalist -- of being funded by the phamaceutical companies. If THAT'S true, then that may alone be the best evidence for TrueHope being effective! ;)
I'm in the U.S. too where we make a distinction between drugs and natural supplements, so all the references to TrueHope being a "drug" rubbed me the wrong way. The "pig pills" designation also is clearly designed to incite against the product. The Ottawa Citizen article, for instance, simply says that
"One of the pair, Mr. Hardy, had experience in animal nutrition and mentions a feed supplement used to prevent aggressive pigs from savaging each other in their pens to his friend Anthony Stephan. The two produce a human version of the feed supplement."
What was the supplement? Is it really used this way? Does it work? Was it the TrueHope formula itself? Or one ingredient?
And as for the horror stories, there's plenty of those for conventional drug therapy as well. The many recent articles about Paxil and suicide being a case in point.
It's bothersome not knowing who to trust, but I think the "let the buyer beware" mentality is more implicit in something we buy over the counter. The drugs, which we depend on FDA approval for, are supposed to be safe and effective, otoh. But are they? When the articles and studies written and done about them may be funded by the big phamaceutical companies? (Not to mention that these are usually very short term studies for things that we take long term.) I read recently that they employ 675 lobbyists in Washington! That's 7 for each member of Congress, to the tune of $91 million. (Per Public Citizen's Congress Watch)
When it comes to natural/alternative/complementary products, it's necessary to separate the fantastic from the plausible, which is something I've noticed the most vociferous of its critics rarely do. The other problem with these critics, is that they are unwilling to consider both individual biological variations and that some things work in synergy ALSO in individual variations. The resulting picture is complex and doesn't lend itself well to the usual studies that we used to determine drug efficacy. Treating the patient, as an individual biological entity with consideration of many variables such as nutrition being involved in either wellness or disease, used to be considered the ART of medicine.
> Compare and contrast this:
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> http://www.truehope.com/home.asp
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> with this:
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> http://www.healthwatcher.net/Quackerywatch/Synergy/index.html
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> - Cam
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> P.S. I cannot elaborate on this because accuracy of facts and reasoning using scientific methods is no longer tolerated on this site. A transmogrification has occurred where psuedo-science and anti-science must be given equal time. The quest for knowledge has been supplanted in order to accommodate obvious quack therapies. We wouldn't want to offend or upset anyone by requesting justification and the proof that led them to their stated conclusions. That just wouldn't be civil. But what is civility anyway: just a word with continually changing, but arbitrary definition? .... or is it just a way to cover the increasingly subjective despotism and arrogance that has permeated this site over the past couple years?
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> Someone's not leaving their ego at the door; better to have half-baked advice from people too lazy to consult original sources, but will believe what they want to believe. Pitiful, just pitiful.
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> By all, I'm going to go play on Dr. Grohol's site; the atmosphere there is not as thick and suffocating. - Cam
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poster:JLx
thread:256836
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20030903/msgs/262637.html