Uhm, what? Would you rather only have private schools, so only the rich can have children educated? I mean, I'm with you on homeland security, but... education?
Also, on marijuana, it really isn't the DEA's fault that they are having to go after small time dealers. They are an enforcement agency, they don't write the laws, or even get to decide how to enforce them. They simply have to enforce the laws that are written and voted on by the congressmen and women you (the people) vote for.
Blame the lobbyists who lobby congress to keep marijuana laws. The for-profit-prison has been the death of sane handling of drug crimes. Don't blame the DEA, they can't do much until the law is changed.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
The point he was trying to make (I think) is that cancer is a large class of diseases, and can not be cured categorically. A "cure for cancer" would be like saying a "cure for viruses". Any cure might work on some cancers, but probably wouldn't work on others.
Just as there are no antibiotics that can cure all bacterial infections, there will be no universal cure for cancer.
Absolutely. Couldn't have put it better myself. By the way, for those who are interested, cancer is unregulated cell growth-- nothing more, nothing less. There is no single cancer gene in your DNA, nor is there a specific kind of cancer cell. Any mutation that alters a vital gene for inhibiting cell growth can cause cancer in any tissue. In particularly deadly strains of cancer, cancer cells are virtually indistinguishable from ordinary cells, except for their growth patterns. That is why there cannot be a single cure for cancer.
I'd also like to point out what should be obvious: the FDA is run by people. Not cyborgs, not demons, not warlocks, not Klingons, but real human beings. These real human beings get cancer.
Not only that, they have husbands and wives, they have children, they have neighbors, they have close friends, they have colleagues-- and the implication seems to be that if any of these people gets cancer, these FDA administrators will just sit on the supposed cure that they have rather than save their friends and loved ones.
Oh, the conspiracy theorists might pipe in to say that they can administer the cure to their closest family or maybe even their friends, but then why has no one stepped forward to say that this is exactly what happened? If I took a miracle pill to cure cancer, I sure as hell would want everyone to know about it.
Sheesh.
Joined: 11/18/2006
Posts: 2426
Location: Back where I belong
Bobo the King wrote:
I'll do my best to not get sucked into this argument, but do any of you cancer cure conspiracy cooks know what cancer is? If you knew what it is, I think you'd understand that not only is there no cure, but there never will be a cure.
I'll be waiting.
I agree with this, and pretty much all of what Darkkobold has said.
EDIT: In other, much more sad news, the collective intelligence of this forum has apparently been decreasing quite quickly within the past two years. Apparently logic and reason easily fall to emotion and ignorance.
Perhaps if this film would have concentrated more on the FDA and less on Burzynski's research, in other words, more of a "the FDA furiously attacks a lone medical doctor" and less of a "miracle cancer cure being shut down by greedy farmaceuticals", and its length cut to 1 hour, it could have been a more interesting documentary, more akin to Moore's Sicko.
20 seconds into the movie on the opening title card:
"This is the story of a medical doctor and PhD biochemist who has discovered the genetic mechanism that can cure most human cancers.
The opening 30 minutes of this film is designed to thoroughly establish this fact—so the viewer can fully appreciate the events that follow it."
Which is exactly why I wrote what you quoted from my post: If it had concentrated less on the "miracle cancer cure" and more on the "FDA furiously attacks poor doctor", and cut down to 1 hour (or less), it could have been interesting. As it is now, it feels more like proselytizing (and, frankly, like a typical conspiracy theory film).
nfq wrote:
Not only is there a cure for cancer, but drug companies also spend millions of dollars to create new and better drugs for causing diseases like cancer.
Why do you even bother making these types of posts anymore? We already know you believe everything, every single conspiracy theory, ufology, cryptozoology, parapsychology, every single claim of supernatural phenomena, and so on. (Ok, you don't believe everything: You don't believe in science. You will deny that, but it's just the truth.)
Maybe you do it because every once in a while some new forum user will fall for the troll and start arguing with you. Can I assume you enjoy these arguments?
I did not watch the documentary. One documentary will not change my impression on general capitalism or the need for an FDA.
I think what the FDA does is fine. There's a reason it takes 20 years to get something done in the US: we are in a molasses-slow bureaucracy. One reason is because America is so sue-happy and protest-laden. These guys (the FDA) operate as such because they have to cover their asses.
Imagine if they didn't exist. You'll end up with syringe tips and HGH in your Zyrtec. Oh yeah, you might get a non-lethal does of melamine in your milk, it's ok you didn't die, all you needed is a kidney transplant.
Imagine if they didn't exist. Be thankful for what you got, it could be so much worse.
If I end up with some type of Cancer, I won't be going through Chemo-Therapy.
There's a lot of misconceptions about chemotherapy out there, most of it based only on the worst case scenarios. Yes, there are many cases where chemotherapy is very destructive and hazardous, but there are also many other cases (probably even the majority) where it isn't, and it actually works and actually cures you. People tend to only look at the worst cases and get all emotional, without realizing that those are only the extreme cases, not the average.
See a more rational experience from an actual cancer patient: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzySHcWuRqw
Of course if you want to die a painful death instead of using a proven form of therapy, that's up to you.
Uhm, what? Would you rather only have private schools, so only the rich can have children educated? I mean, I'm with you on homeland security, but... education?
Also, on marijuana, it really isn't the DEA's fault that they are having to go after small time dealers. They are an enforcement agency, they don't write the laws, or even get to decide how to enforce them. They simply have to enforce the laws that are written and voted on by the congressmen and women you (the people) vote for.
Blame the lobbyists who lobby congress to keep marijuana laws. The for-profit-prison has been the death of sane handling of drug crimes. Don't blame the DEA, they can't do much until the law is changed.
I could get into the specifics of why the Department of Education is a problem, but first, do you realize that the Department of Education is barely 30 years old? Did we have a functioning educational system before 1979? Are you seriously willing to contest that education has gotten better since then?
On the DEA, no, I'm not blaming the bureaucracy; I'm saying it shouldn't exist. Although I have to wonder how some people who work for these agencies and "just take orders", the main blame rests on the policy makers.
Finally, on fluoride, again, even if I don't get into the details of why it has serious issues, the concept doesn't make much sense. If you have a population, and you want to promote consumption of a substance that could potentially help, you promote it via the media. I take a cocktail of vitamins every day, which if I ate until I was sick wouldn't cause permanent damage, and probably serve a lot of good, but I don't want to put it into anyone's water or food supply because it's an individual's choice.
The problem with talking about these things and bringing up valid criticisms is that people assume you're against the thing these organizations are supposedly for. Do you really think I'm against education, safe food and drugs, etc? All I'm saying is that these organizations often don't do what they are supposed to do, and worse yet, they often do the exact opposite. Why? I'm not going to bother, as I know I'll just be called a nut job who wears tin foil hats. I think my concerns are valid.
Would it be a good idea to take this discussion elsewhere? I know this is Off-Topic, but it was never my intention to derail the cancer discussion. I guess it'd be appropriate to mention that I lost my grandmother to it, and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.
@Brandon: The way to fix government institutions that don't work in your interest is to make people aware of it and become politically active (and propose solutions instead of just spreading hate for the organization). If you abolish them, who else is going to represent your interest? A good way to make institutions like that work more in your interest is to make them receive more tax payer money. If there's no government at all, I guarantee you it's in best corporate interest that you learn why exactly their products are so good for you and for you to become addicted to everything.
Derakon wrote:
Wikipedia has an article on water fluoridation that you might want to read. At least the introduction. Short version: it works to prevent tooth decay
Wouldn't many mildly poisonous substances work to prevent tooth decay? Does that mean it's a good idea? How much money (and publicity) does it save for corporations who want to get rid of their fluoride as an industrial waste product? Wouldn't a study that guarantees fluoride is preventing tooth decay (which surely, it does because it kills bacteria) have come in handy for them? Just some questions to think about. I don't think it's THAT bad for your health, but it'd certainly be putting a minor strain on my body and I'd rather go without. Putting fluoride into tooth paste I find quite reasonable though.
@Brandon: The way to fix government organizations that don't work in your interest is to make people aware of it and become politically active (and propose solutions instead of just spreading hate for the organization). If you abolish them, who else is going to represent your interest? A good way to make institutions like that work more in your interest is to make them receive more tax payer money. If there's no government at all, I guarantee you it's in best corporate interest that you learn why their products are good for you and for you to become addicted to everything.
I could explain why American politics is virtually a lost cause, but that's another discussion. I have solutions which I'll happily spread: legalize every drug and use $12 billion/year we spend locking up kids on clinics to get people real help. Provide actual clean water and promote the consumption of fluoride elsewhere if you have studies to really back up how much it can help. Create an organization that really moderates corporate abuses instead of pretending to stick up for the little guy while allowing multi-billion dollar companies to not pay a single dollar in taxes through loopholes and subsidies. In general, stand up for the people who gave you power instead of spending money on counterproductive institutions that do nothing but profit off of them while giving them the false sense of security that someone is watching over them.
I take a cocktail of vitamins every day, which if I ate until I was sick wouldn't cause permanent damage, and probably serve a lot of good, but I don't want to put it into anyone's water or food supply because it's an individual's choice.
So basically your only argument is that health must be a choice of every individual?
Anyways, you might want to reconsider your "coctail". IIRC studies have shown that flooding yourself with dietary supplements for long periods of time can be more harmful than beneficial.
I take a cocktail of vitamins every day, which if I ate until I was sick wouldn't cause permanent damage, and probably serve a lot of good, but I don't want to put it into anyone's water or food supply because it's an individual's choice.
So basically your only argument is that health must be a choice of every individual?
No, I said without getting into the "facts" about it, we should consider the logical implications. The problem with bringing up facts and science is that they can be as easily distorted as anything else. I'm a computer scientist; if an "expert" told me that fluoride is the cure to cancer, I'd certainly be skeptical, but I can't exactly bring up counter evidence. As such, I try to avoid vehemently citing things.
Anyways, you might want to reconsider your "coctail". IIRC studies have shown that flooding yourself with dietary supplements for long periods of time can be more harmful than beneficial.
this is relevant to my interests. Please link to this study.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
Regarding fluoridation: broadly speaking, we have two choices here:
1) Fluoride for everyone! Put it in the water so everyone's drinking it. Direct costs: studies before implementing the plan to make certain it's safe; passing the required legislation; about $1/person/year.
2) Let people choose! Create a subsidy for companies to provide fluoride supplements (since the government certainly can't make and market them directly) and a media campaign to encourage people to take those supplements. Direct costs: studies before implementing the plan to make certain it's safe. even given wildly varying fluoride intakes; $X/person/year in subsidies; $Y/year in continual media campaigns to remind people to take their fluoride. Indirect costs: poor people can't afford to buy supplements even when subsidised, cut it from their purchases, get tooth decay, get wiped out by the dentist's bill, and have to go on welfare, thereby costing the country way more in support than they ever would have if the water had been fluoridated from the start.
Look, I'm all for very careful consideration before we mandate any supplement be put into the water supply. There's a lot that could go wrong there. However, in the specific case of fluoride, we have decades' worth of evidence that it works, and I can't believe that a privately-run system would accomplish the same goal with anywhere near the same level of effectiveness.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Anyways, you might want to reconsider your "coctail". IIRC studies have shown that flooding yourself with dietary supplements for long periods of time can be more harmful than beneficial.
this is relevant to my interests. Please link to this study.
Damned if I remember now where I read/heard about this. However, I'm pretty certain that the source was credible (because I don't have the habit of repeating hearsay and urban legends). Of course without me being able to give you a concrete reference, you shouldn't just take my word for it.
From what I remember, it wasn't even about dubious dietary supplements that promise miracles (such as losing weight or making certain organs grow larger), but precisely about normal vitamins and minerals that are part of a normal healthy diet. The thing was that if you overload your system with them, getting more than the recommended daily dosage, it can be harmful in the long run.
I don't know if that story where I got the info was related to this study: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12531576
There are, of course, also many individual cases of a dietary supplement causing harm to (and even killing) someone, but I don't know if they are directly related to that either. Such as: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/10/29/eveningnews/main527399.shtml
Regarding fluoridation: broadly speaking, we have two choices here:
1) Fluoride for everyone! Put it in the water so everyone's drinking it. Direct costs: studies before implementing the plan to make certain it's safe; passing the required legislation; about $1/person/year.
2) Let people choose! Create a subsidy for companies to provide fluoride supplements (since the government certainly can't make and market them directly) and a media campaign to encourage people to take those supplements. Direct costs: studies before implementing the plan to make certain it's safe. even given wildly varying fluoride intakes; $X/person/year in subsidies; $Y/year in continual media campaigns to remind people to take their fluoride. Indirect costs: poor people can't afford to buy supplements even when subsidised, cut it from their purchases, get tooth decay, get wiped out by the dentist's bill, and have to go on welfare, thereby costing the country way more in support than they ever would have if the water had been fluoridated from the start.
Look, I'm all for very careful consideration before we mandate any supplement be put into the water supply. There's a lot that could go wrong there. However, in the specific case of fluoride, we have decades' worth of evidence that it works, and I can't believe that a privately-run system would accomplish the same goal with anywhere near the same level of effectiveness.
I'm curious what this would do to the environment. People water their lawns with the same water they drink - after 50 years, would we get such a build up of fluoride kill plants? Is it biodegradable? After how long? Is it corrosive? OK for repeated exposure to skin, or would it lead to more dry skin and cracking hands?
I mean, we use our drinking water for so much more than drinking... I haven't found any links that address anything other than health concerns for drinking, not for the zillion other uses of potable water.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
There's still a lot of interesting stuff in here though and I'll watch the last hour later. Both of these documentaries are getting at more or less the same overall point anyway; the way the pharmaceutical companies, the FDA and doctors interact is flawed and needs fixing.
By the way, the documentary I linked to was made by scientologists :P They're very critical to psychiatry. But even though it was made by scientologists, there can still be some truth in the documentary.
Cardboard wrote:
Tragically enough, this reminds me of people refusing their children vaccinations because of something that is on the internet.
I've only taken a vaccination once, because it made me sick.
Vaccinated Children Two And A Half Times More Likely To Have Neurological Disorders Like ADHD: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/75333.phpDerakon wrote:
But fluoridation is a good thing.
Usually anything that is unnatural is unhealthy to eat, which includes fluoridated water, because water isn't naturally fluoridated. If nature/evolution meant that we should drink fluoridated water, the water in nature would already be fluoridated, and our bodies would have been adapted to it. Fluoridated water decreases IQ: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/fluoride-in-water-linked-to-lower-iq-in-children-112261459.html
Even if it does prevent tooth decay, isn't it better to just brush teeth to prevent tooth decay, instead of putting fluor in the water? Tooth decay and many other health problems is caused by us living unnaturally. For example, cooking food is unnatural, because food isn't cooked in nature by default. Cooking usually makes food toxic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrylamide#Prepared_foods
Smoke is not good for the health, whether it's smoke from cigarettes or food. If it was meant for us to eat cooked food, then food would grow in volcanos.
Smoke is not good for the health, whether it's smoke from cigarettes or food. If it was meant for us to eat cooked food, then food would grow in volcanos.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
I call bullshit. Vaccinated against what? It's not like there's one single vaccine, produced in one single way, using one single liquid medium.
Even if the numbers are accurate and the margin of error low, correlation still doesn't imply causation. There can be other factors at play.
The rest of the article seems to also be rife with correlation-implies-causation fallacies.
(I also find it sad how many parents prefer their children to die rather than having a very small alleged risk of becoming autistic or whatever, even though the probability of death by preventable disease is much larger. I suppose it's an attitude of "better dead than autistic".)
If nature/evolution meant that we should drink fluoridated water, the water in nature would already be fluoridated, and our bodies would have been adapted to it.
You seem to give nature some kind of sentience and will, like it's a benevolent being who tries to protect and benefit us, as long as we obey nature. Nature/evolution does not "mean" to do anything. Nature is. It doesn't have sentience or will.
Tooth decay and many other health problems is caused by us living unnaturally. For example, cooking food is unnatural, because food isn't cooked in nature by default.
Bullshit. You can eat as naturally as you want, and you will still get tooth decay if you don't care about your dental hygiene.
If it was meant for us to eat cooked food, then food would grow in volcanos.
That's one of the stupidest things you have written in a long time.
If we were meant to eat meat, it would come prepackaged as steaks, and not have to be grown on a cow!
Correct. We are not meant to eat meat. Eating meat is usually immoral for humans, because we are intelligent creatures, so we know that it's wrong to kill animals.
We weren't 'meant' to cook food any more than we were 'meant' to build computers or 'meant' to put a man on the moon. We discovered cooking! The whole concept that we were 'meant' for anything is pure absurdity.
By "meant" I mean that all creatures have always eaten natural food (perhaps I should have used the word adapted instead of "meant"). No other creatures have ever cooked their food, and nature and evolution knows what's best for us. Our bodies have evolved to eat food that is in nature, so it's not a good idea to start burning food suddenly... if we want to do that, we should first change our bodies so that they can handle that kind of food.
In fact, some theorize that the ability of humankind to grow large brains was directly related to cooking.
Yeah, that's a common myth. It's surprising that there are scientists who say that. Strange how poisoning the body with chemicals and smoke would make the brains grow...
Warp wrote:
You seem to give nature some kind of sentience and will, like it's a benevolent being who tries to protect and benefit us, as long as we obey nature.
Accurate statement. If we go against natural laws like gravity, we will die. If we eat unnatural food, we will get diseases or die (because our bodies are not adapted that that kind of food). We have to live in harmony with nature.
Nature is. It doesn't have sentience or will.
Many parts of nature obviously have consciousness and will. You for example. Unless you're a hard believer in materialism, which says that nothing has a will. Animals, insects, microorganisms have will and consciousness, and some have said that even plants have some kind of consciousness. So what makes you think that the rest of nature doesn't have some kind of consciousness too? Perhaps there are no natural laws, they are just the result of wills and sentience.
Bullshit. You can eat as naturally as you want, and you will still get tooth decay if you don't care about your dental hygiene.
Google for raw food prevent caries/cavities. You might also want to google for toothpaste cause caries.
Regarding water flouridation not being "natural": The effect of flouride on tooth health was, if I remember correctly, discovered *because* it occurs naturally. Flouride concentration in water varies naturally by region, and it was discovered that people in regions with higher flouride concentration had significantly better tooth health than those in areas with lower concentrations. Follow-up tests then confirmed that flouride improves tooth health (unless the concentration gets too high). Water flouridation brings those benefits to everybody, so that you don't have to be lucky enough to live in a city with naturally high flouride levels.
If I end up with some type of Cancer, I won't be going through Chemo-Therapy.
There's a lot of misconceptions about chemotherapy out there, most of it based only on the worst case scenarios. Yes, there are many cases where chemotherapy is very destructive and hazardous, but there are also many other cases (probably even the majority) where it isn't, and it actually works and actually cures you. People tend to only look at the worst cases and get all emotional, without realizing that those are only the extreme cases, not the average.
See a more rational experience from an actual cancer patient: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzySHcWuRqw
Of course if you want to die a painful death instead of using a proven form of therapy, that's up to you.
I can't go through Chemo after seeing what it did to my Aunt.
It wasn't the Cancer that killed her. It was the Chemo that did it.
She was the most energetic person I knew. And she was my favorite Aunt.
I guess apparently there's a book out there that tells of some type of food out there that Bill Clinton eats that cures like 97% of people with various types of cancers.
The book costs $30, but if it actually works, it'll be $30 well spent.
