Comments for More Evasion at http://www.randi.org/site , comment 1 to 42 out of 20 comments http://www.randi.org/site Tue, 18 Jun 2013 17:03:16 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/658-more-evasion.html#comment-9470 james randi a fraud - stanley03061973 Wed, 12 Aug 2009 09:00:04 +0100 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/658-more-evasion.html#comment-9457 Me e-mail to NCI was answered.Unsatisfactorily! I send a second one! Next comes a letter. Anyone has an idea where to mail it so that the director actually gets it? Worst comes to worst, I send it to their regular address from the web addressed to him. Don't know if that will make it throug though! Anway... http://skepfeeds.wordpress.com/2009/08/12/my-e-mail-to-the-nci-a-follow-up/ - Skepdude Wed, 12 Aug 2009 04:54:26 +0100 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/658-more-evasion.html#comment-9407 Have a look i think the million is mine now this blokes a fraud he want look i will prove it any day of the week we arent alone have alook for yourself http://www.youtube.com/user/stanley03061973 HAVE A LOOK JAMES - stanley03061973 Mon, 10 Aug 2009 06:30:22 +0100 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/658-more-evasion.html#comment-9202 @greekGodess: Thanks for the reference to Simon Singh. I'll see if I can get my hands on a copy. @amos M and MadScientist: Okay, so you could have, say three sets of people, say, (1) liver problems, (2) joint problems, (3) control group (miscellaneous problems, or none at all), and the [s]torturer[/s] acupuncturist is randomly told correctly or incorrectly which group the [s]victim[/s] patient belongs to. That makes sense. (I figured the other blinding would be "real" vs "sham" needle sticks, it was the other half I was curious about.) Thanks, guys. -Rusty - minusRusty Thu, 06 Aug 2009 18:38:23 +0100 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/658-more-evasion.html#comment-9190 No I didn't miss the second part of your sentence. I simply wasn't sure of your position on the subject (i.e if you where talking about the practical use of alt med or the positioning of the NIH). Thank you for clearing that for me. Now I know I totally agree with you. - melusine Thu, 06 Aug 2009 07:04:30 +0100 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/658-more-evasion.html#comment-9169 @mazyloron Thanks for the links. I'll take a closer look at those later tonight. - Skeptigirl Wed, 05 Aug 2009 16:20:27 +0100 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/658-more-evasion.html#comment-9168 Just got a call from one of my clients, a medical clinic, they had a worker get a needlestick, with an acupuncture needle! OH my word. I could not say I was just in a discussion about how acupuncture is not supported by science. So, like the patient with false beliefs we have to gently approach, I have to do the same when it is a medical provider that is also a customer of mine. :'( - Skeptigirl Wed, 05 Aug 2009 16:18:54 +0100 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/658-more-evasion.html#comment-9166 [b]@ redwench[/b] -- Unfortunately, every word of my comment is true. There are other troubling aspects about this woman that I didn't reveal, due to space considerations. I've had numerous arguments with her about her wacked-out belief in sCAM "therapies." She gets very upset and says that I don't trust her (true) and that my intelligence prevents my ability to see obvious truths (not true). You are, of course, right that I must stop seeing her. She's a good person, but not a good doctor. I plan to make a full report to my insurer. [b]@ NewCoaster[/b] -- Thank you for relating your experiences. I'm working on a letter explaining to my GP why I've found another doctor. Even without this letter, though, she would know why. I've strongly (and respectfully) disagreed with her many, many times. I should've left her care long ago, and I'm ashamed that I haven't. My daughter nearly died (at age 10) from a perforated appendix, while her mother took her to one witch doctor (sCAM practitioner) after another, trying to get a "healing" for her. The crazy bitch didn't even tell me my daughter was sick. One week later, the surgeon was telling me that my daughter might not survive her illness. Given the horrific nature of the near-tragedy, and that it was brought about by my idiot EX-wife's belief in sCAM, I should be horse-whipped for staying with this GP for more than one visit. - Human Person Jr Wed, 05 Aug 2009 13:54:38 +0100 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/658-more-evasion.html#comment-9165 Thanks for the response to that WHO link. I've actually found some more info refuting it or at least questioning it, that I linked in the forum here: [url]http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=4971258[/url] Still, I'd love to hear what anyone has to say about it. The best response I've found is a leading acupuncturist claiming that the study is biased and not to be trusted. Which is certainly something, but hardly enough to convince most people. - mazyloron Wed, 05 Aug 2009 13:11:17 +0100 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/658-more-evasion.html#comment-9162 [quote]written by melusine, August 04, 2009 To skeptigirl. Could you elaborate on your comment. I fail to understand you when you say: It's really a sad commentary on the medical profession we are unwilling to confront false beliefs but rather think we need to accommodate the believers instead Do you mean that doctors are actually unwilling to work on a person's beliefs? I agree that some doctors are not only unwilling but actually believe in the validity of acupuncture and other nonsense… However, the rational ones are not unwilling to. There are many things to consider when you work on your patient beliefs. Not only do we often lack the time to work on it, but changing your patients belief isn't as simple as explaining the difference betwen personnal experience and statistical evidence. If you, as I suspect, work in the medical field, you also know that some beliefs cannot be explored without threatening the patient/doctor relation. We are not in the teacher position of open questionning. We are in a much less rationnal situation dealing with emotions. And not all the patients are able or willing to discuss their beliefs.[/quote]You seem to have ignored the second sentence in my post, "There's a place for accommodating a patient's cultural beliefs." That or you took cultural beliefs to have a narrower meaning than I intended. When I was in nursing school in the 80s, it was a trend to incorporate patients' alt med practices into their treatment. It was, and still is, important to be culturally sensitive, and the idea was patients were going to use alt med anyway, so by expressing acceptance of their practices at least they might tell you about them and you could note if something interacted with anything you were prescribing. There is a place for working with individual patient beliefs though I no longer buy the idea I must accommodate to the point of compromising my principles of promoting science based medicine. But I was addressing a larger issue. That is the issue of treating alternative medicine as harmless and/or necessary because of all the reasons you cited: not enough time, alienating the patient and so on. It is not harmless. And promoting critical thinking about medical decisions has great benefits. As for the difficulties involved in addressing such beliefs with individual patients, I think we can accommodate today, but work to develop patient communication tools which break down the barriers of established false beliefs and tools which can be effective given time and other constraints health care providers face today. Just because a problem is difficult is no reason to resign oneself to complacency. As for the overall problem I was originally addressing, if you read the comments from the NIH committee after it was reported that 2.5 billion dollars spent researching alt med had almost nothing to show for the money spent, you'd understand a bit better what I was getting at. There was a clear reluctance to admit their belief in alt med was unfounded. The comments were quite apologetic suggesting perhaps the studies weren't done well rather than most alt med is bunk. How much should we spend on researching popular treatments which have been promoted by marketers, sometimes without even traditional medicine history behind the claims? When is it time to say, the is a problem with the whole concept of non-science based medicine? Some of the people who believe in this stuff are in influential places within our government. We should be calling them out on their wasteful legislation and questioning their appointments to positions such as managing the NIH. - Skeptigirl Wed, 05 Aug 2009 12:00:17 +0100 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/658-more-evasion.html#comment-9161 Must be the quotes missed the hidden text in the hyperlink. Weird though in that it shows the first "Wow," twice. Oh well. - Skeptigirl Wed, 05 Aug 2009 11:32:57 +0100 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/658-more-evasion.html#comment-9160 [quote]written by mazyloron, August 04, 2009 I posted this in the forums as well, but I'd love to see what people have to say in response to this: http://apps.who.int/medicinedo...#Js4926e.5 I'm not personally an acupuncture supporter, I think it's just more woo...but, the WHO isn't some random crackpot wooster, they're usually pretty rational, I thought. And that link has way more information than I am qualified to evaluate - I am not a doctor or scientist, just a normal guy who doesn't see any good reason to think that Qi lines and meridians exist outside of anyone imagination. Yet, there's a ridiculously long list of studies on this link, showing what looks like a mountain of evidence for acupuncture's effectiveness: http://apps.who.int/medicinedo...26e/6.html[/quote]Wow, just wow. Thank you for bringing that to our attention. My first impression is the WHO failed to vet the studies they've accepted as evidence of acupuncture's effectiveness. This misinformation will take years to undo if, as I suspect, many of these studies were either poorly done, faked, or perhaps done with small sample sizes but having tossed out any of the related studies with small sample sizes where negative results were obtained. In your second link [b]you see no studies with negative results listed[/b]. Thus the WHO is saying, if we look at 10 studies showing no effect in 9 of them we can still count the 1 study showing a positive result as evidence acupuncture treats a specific condition. I will, however, take a closer look at the studies they did cite to verify my suspicions. - Skeptigirl Wed, 05 Aug 2009 11:30:49 +0100 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/658-more-evasion.html#comment-9150 Human Person Jr. Your doctor is a quack. You should not only find another doctor, but you should letter your soon-to-be-former GP know WHY you are leaving their practice. There are several GP's in my small community who practice acupuncture...even the more odious and silly auricular acupuncture..Healing Touch, Emotional Freedom Technique and as well advocate (and wear) magnets and crystals. I am not worried about PC, or offending quacks or charlatans. I do spend time education patients when I find out they are receiving some form of sCAM. For this, I am perceived as a "crank" by the "quacks". - NewCoaster Wed, 05 Aug 2009 05:30:09 +0100 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/658-more-evasion.html#comment-9148 Simon Singh covers several protocols for double-blind testing of acupuncture in his book [i]Trick or Treatment[/i]. - GeekGoddess Wed, 05 Aug 2009 04:27:01 +0100 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/658-more-evasion.html#comment-9146 I am naively hoping that your post was a joke... Why on earth would anyone use a medical practitioner again after they spouted such nonsense? I would recommend you file complaints with the State Medical Board, her employers (should she have them), and any insurance provider list she is on. This individual should not be treating patients in need of medical care. - redwench Wed, 05 Aug 2009 00:49:57 +0100 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/658-more-evasion.html#comment-9144 @StarTrekLivz: If all you know of acupuncture comes from "X-Files" and the internet then you're as knowledgable as any acupuncturist (although poking the needles in is a bit of an art; if you don't know what you're doing you'll have people screaming all the time). Unlike textbooks on human anatomy there is virtually no consistency between acupuncture charts. Basically everyone makes up their own cock-and-bull story and says things like "master so-and-so who learned from master such-and-such said that blah blah." It's reminiscent of that bit from Cats: "at least we all heard that somebody heard, which is incontestable proof!" You don't have to spend much time in China before it becomes painfully obvious how much nonsense is spread about via hearsay and appeal to non-existent authority. - MadScientist Tue, 04 Aug 2009 18:57:17 +0100 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/658-more-evasion.html#comment-9143 Believe it or not, I try to explain to my MD that acupuncture and other sCAM approaches are bogus. She told me that Qi is scientifically proven to exist, and that an acupuncturist "healed" her of pain in her shoulder. She also tried to get me to take Ayurvedic medicine that her husband brought back from India, but I would have none of it. Furthermore, she lent me three books on reincarnation, so I could become "enlightened" as to the bigger picture. She said that she and I have been together in a past life and we'll be together again in a future life. I remained silent, but thought, "Gee, I hope I'm the doctor next time and can scare the beejeezus outta you!" Needless to say, her days with me are numbered. - Human Person Jr Tue, 04 Aug 2009 17:57:17 +0100 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/658-more-evasion.html#comment-9139 "Laser Needles"? Brings a whole new meaning to double-blind tests! - Michael K Gray Tue, 04 Aug 2009 13:31:05 +0100 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/658-more-evasion.html#comment-9136 I think you're right, most doctors have so much pressure to see x number of patients per hour they do not have the time to disabuse them of a lot of woo woo -- except if the woo woo is keeping them from seeking the treatment they need. Also, in these days of "political correctness" doctors may feel they are encroaching into an area they should not go, challenging a belief system, for example. Also, I know a couple doctors who don't believe in woo woo and acupuncture and prayer as cure, but do know about the Placebo affect, and, again as long as it does not interfere with a prudent therapy regime, will let the patient indulge in anything that makes them think they feel better but will not actually hurt them. - StarTrekLivz Tue, 04 Aug 2009 10:02:28 +0100 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/658-more-evasion.html#comment-9135 I posted this in the forums as well, but I'd love to see what people have to say in response to this: [url]http://apps.who.int/medicinedocs/en/d/Js4926e/#Js4926e.5[/url] I'm not personally an acupuncture supporter, I think it's just more woo...but, the WHO isn't some random crackpot wooster, they're usually pretty rational, I thought. And that link has way more information than I am qualified to evaluate - I am not a doctor or scientist, just a normal guy who doesn't see any good reason to think that Qi lines and meridians exist outside of anyone imagination. Yet, there's a ridiculously long list of studies on this link, showing what looks like a mountain of evidence for acupuncture's effectiveness: [url]http://apps.who.int/medicinedocs/en/d/Js4926e/6.html[/url] I'd love to know what Randi says about this one, though I doubt he'll see it. - mazyloron Tue, 04 Aug 2009 09:49:16 +0100